


a heart that laughter has made sweet

by falsettodrop



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Comeplay, Consensual Underage Sex, Frottage, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Repression, me: [adding sex tags with more shame every time] LET ME LIVE OKAY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-01-23 21:34:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21327022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsettodrop/pseuds/falsettodrop
Summary: He’s seventeen when Richie accidentally kisses him.(Or: two simultaneous journeys of self-discovery.)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 179
Kudos: 1221
Collections: It Faves





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I call, how do you say, character development disguised as a whole lot of porn. It’s my first time writing Richie/Eddie, so maybe let me know how I did?
> 
> Title is from a W. B. Yeats poem called _Fallen Majesty_.

**PART I**   
  


He wakes to the noise of unusual breathing and sharp, erratic movements. Blearily, he looks around his room in question, but it’s to no avail; the darkness surrounding him does little to reveal the picture beside him. Instead he stays still while he returns to full consciousness, listening attentively to the sound. And then comes to the realization that, undoubtedly, what he’s hearing is Richie.

Richie, whimpering pitifully into his pillow.

Knowing Richie is having a nightmare shakes Eddie from his sleeping state, leading to him searching blindly at his bedside for the lamp. He’s unfazed by Richie being in his bed; he wouldn’t allow just anyone to stay there—not that anyone else would bother asking in the first place—and at this point, Richie is far from being just anyone. He’s witnessed Richie having these dreams countless times, so he’s aware of how to handle it. It’s practically protocol after murdering a demonic clown together at the age of thirteen.

“Rich?” Eddie whispers, cautiously. He can’t see Richie like this, eyes still blurry in the dim light of the room, but he can hear his irregular, stunted breathing.

Eddie sighs, stretching his legs under the covers as he mentally prepares to disturb Richie. It might be four years since the Losers killed Pennywise, but they still have terrible dreams about what happened to them every now and then. Richie’s insomnia has improved since he began sleeping in Eddie’s bedroom, only coming over on particularly restless nights, and Eddie rarely wakes up shuddering from panic attacks these days—that’s more of an ten times a year occurrence, which might not be perfect, but is yards better than the constant anxiety that ate at Eddie for months after that one summer.

They still have rough nights though, similar to the one Richie is having right now, and Eddie knows that Richie only sleeps here when he’s worried it’s going to be a bad night. 

Eddie sits up, eyes adjusting to the little light brightening his room. After a quick glance at the clock, he creates a plan. It’s only four on a Friday morning; they have school in a few hours, but if Eddie acts fast he can get Richie calm and back to sleep in no time. 

“Rich?” Eddie asks, this time with a fuller voice. Richie’s only reply is another unconscious whimper, clearly still deep in sleep, and Eddie touches his shoulder in a move to soothe him. “Richie, c’mon, wake up.” 

Richie makes this small hurt sound into his pillow. And then, he breathes out a single word. “_Eddie_.” 

Eddie’s heart stops. He wonders what Richie is dreaming of this time. Is it Eddie dying again? Richie had once confessed to him, melting down in tears, that he had this terrifying recurring nightmare about Eddie’s arm getting eaten by Pennywise, leaving him lifeless in the basement of Neibolt. It had taken him hours to relax Richie after that episode.

“Richie,” he tries again, turning Richie’s head over with his palm so he can properly look at his face. Richie’s jaw goes slack, letting out a groan. “It’s a dream, it’s just a dream,” he says over and over, desperate to console him.

Richie whines again, but his breathing pattern changes, like he’s finally waking up.

Richie is sweating a little, so Eddie sweeps the curls from Richie’s face in an attempt to tame his hair. “I’m here,” Eddie says, softly. He doesn’t care how tender his voice sounds; Richie can’t hear him yet, and it’s not like anyone is around to witness it.

Richie makes this deep groan, arching off the bed, and his eyes flutter open, finally looking at Eddie. They shut again, so quick that Eddie would’ve missed it if he had blinked. “Eddie, _oh_,” Richie gasps, voice shaking. His hand reaches out to touch Eddie’s face, cupping under his jaw.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie murmurs. “Are you alright, Rich—?”

Richie cuts him off with a sudden movement, pulling him in so close that Eddie can count Richie’s freckles, and Eddie falls quiet because—

Because—

Eddie gasps against Richie’s lips, shocked. 

Holy fucking shit, Richie is _kissing _him.

“Eds,” Richie is whispering reverently against Eddie’s open mouth, tongue tracing Eddie’s lips, warm and wet and remarkable. Eddie shudders, fingers going tight in Richie’s hair.

_Holy shit_, Eddie thinks helplessly, as Richie’s tongue sneaks inside. His body has arched against the length of Eddie’s body, pressing close against him, and Eddie thinks he might be hallucinating because he can feel the shape of Richie, clothed and _hard _against Eddie’s thigh. 

Richie ruts against him once, twice, and Eddie short-circuits, stops, and reboots. 

When his brain catches up to him, he realizes that something absolutely, positively fucking crazy is happening.

He pulls back, pinching Richie’s arm as hard as he can. Richie yelps, “What the _fuck_, Eddie, _ow_.”

“Richie.” Eddie attempts to steady his voice, knowing that Richie is probably only just getting a handle on his brain again, and might freak out for real when he realizes what has happened. 

Richie’s eyes fly open, breathing heavily into the heated air of Eddie’s room. His eyes are glazed over as he looks at Eddie, and Eddie is still staring at him in shock. “Eds,” Richie says, mouth miles ahead of his brain. “Why do you look even hotter in my dreams?”

Eddie blinks twice. He shake harder at Richie’s shoulder, trying to get it through his thick brain that this is real life.

“_Ow_.” He’s being too loud for Eddie’s house at four in the fucking morning, but there are more important concerns to be addressed. “Why are you hurting me?”

“Why am I _hurting you_?” Eddie asks, a tad hysterical. “Why were you _kissing me_?”

It takes about half a minute for that sentence to settle properly in Richie’s head. It’s dead silent, Eddie and Richie both attempting to catch their breath, until Richie mumbles a very quiet and stupid, “Um. What?”

“You _kissed me_,” Eddie restates. His heart is racing so much, and he feels like he’s going to have a heart attack. Oh, God, can you die from kissing? Eddie didn’t know that. Eddie didn’t know that you could _die from kissing_. 

For Christ’s sake, before today, Eddie hadn’t even been kissed.

His head hurts.

Richie is still staring at him with that dumb, stunned look on his face.

“What?” Eddie asks, needing to know what is going in Richie’s brain. He can always tell what Richie is thinking; they are best friends, and he can read him better than most. But tonight, Richie won’t stop looking at him like—like—“Did you think you were still asleep? What _was _that, Richie? Were you—?” he cuts off, coming to an unexpected realization.

Richie… was dreaming about him.

Richie was dreaming about kissing him. He’d said Eddie’s name, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he? That hadn’t been a hallucination, right?

_Oh, shit_, Eddie thinks, as he remembers the feeling of Richie’s dick pressed against the skin of his thigh. Richie hadn’t been having a nightmare… had he? 

Eddie swallows his words, unsure of how to proceed with this newfound knowledge. Richie seems to have gone brain-dead, as if he’s waiting for Eddie to flip out on him, or maybe hoping to wake up, this all having turned out to be some bizarre dream.

Eddie clears his throat. He waits a beat, then questions, “Are you… alright?” 

His breathing speeds up, a tell-tale sign that he’s about to go bananas. “I’m—” Richie’s voice cracks embarrassingly. “I’m fine.” His voice is so high-pitched; Eddie can see the obvious lie for what it is.

“Richie…” Eddie begins, and then stops. He doesn’t even know how to start unpacking this. “What—?”

“I have to go!” Richie bursts, sounding shrill. Eddie’s spine straightens, observing the flurry of Richie clambering out of his bed, grabbing his glasses, and shucking on the shoes he left near the windowsill. Richie’s flails as he attempts to put on his windbreaker, rambling nonstop like he’s having a nervous breakdown: “I’m—I need to go! I’ll—I’ll see you at school, okay, I—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, bye.”

He leaves the window open after he jumps through it, appearing more foolish than ever, and Eddie listens to the distant sound of Richie’s footsteps running toward his car parked a block away. It grows quieter and quieter, until all Eddie’s left with are a suffocating silence and the chilling November breeze filtering through his bedroom. 

With his hair sleep-fuzzy and his brain half-melted, he thinks about Richie’s tongue licking at the inside of his mouth, and promptly gets up to scrub his teeth clean.

++

Look: Eddie adores Richie. He really does, although he might not say it aloud very often. He might admit to it if under an influence, or maybe if he was protected by the darkness of nightfall, Richie laying beside him and playing with his fingers in that quiet, contemplative way that he sometimes does when he needs something to fidget with. But he doesn’t gives those words away easily.

The truth: if he thinks about it hard enough, which he truly tries not to, because being alone with his thoughts is Eddie’s personal hell and he’d rather just _go, go, go _until he can’t any longer… if he thinks about it hard enough, he can admit something else. Richie is Eddie’s best friend. It might not be much of a revelation, because of course Richie is Eddie’s best friend, and who the fuck is he kidding, here?

The point: Eddie adores the fuck out of Richie when it comes down to it, but goddamn, Richie can be such an _idiot _sometimes.

++

Richie doesn’t show up at school, to everyone’s surprise but Eddie’s. He could just tell that Richie would pull something stupid like this, knew it as soon as Richie ran from him. Eddie can’t help but feel frustrated, both with Richie’s cowardice and utter predictability. 

“Can’t believe he just didn’t show up,” Eddie mutters under his breath at lunch, stabbing a boiled carrot with his fork. “We have exams in _three weeks_. I know he’s some kind of freak genius, but he still needs to come to school.”

“This is typical of Richie,” Stan points out dryly, “to blow off school.”

Bill glances at Beverly in particular. “He always d-does it with one of u-us, though.”

“Don’t look at me,” Bev tries to defend herself, in the process of French-braiding her hair. “I’m actually a little offended that Richie decided to play hooky today. _Without _me.” She pouts a little, like she’s actually disappointed.

“He’s such a _dumbass_,” Eddie hisses, barely listening as he cuts into his chicken aggressively with a butter-knife.

“Why are you so angry?” Ben wonders, and when Eddie looks at him, Ben is eyeing the chicken with sympathy. 

“I’m _not_.” He plucks his chicken off the bowl, doing it hard enough that his fork clangs against the Tupperware. He shoves the meat into his mouth, chewing sulkily. 

He glances up, and is met with four identical wary looks.

Eddie swallows his food, then repeats, firmer and calmer: “I’m not.”

He stabs his bean sprout.

++

He is not angry with Richie. He is not. He gets mad at Richie for countless reasons, but this isn’t one of them.

He’s just fucking confused, all right? He thinks he has a right to be after the way Richie kissed him like that, half-asleep, ruffled, intense, and wholehearted. And then, worse, immediately booked it for the rest of the day. He had told Eddie he’d see him at school, and Eddie had trusted in that. Eddie takes solace in predictability, and he enjoys knowing what the fuck is going on. Right now, he does _not _know what the fuck is going on, and he hates it.

He’s confused, and annoyed, and frustrated, and more than anything, he’s unnerved by the fact that his best friend has suddenly become this unsolved mystery.

++

He checks Richie’s house after school, but he isn’t there. The driveway is empty since Maggie and Went are still at work, and Richie sure as hell isn’t going to answer the door if he’s so desperate to avoid Eddie that he cut school. Eddie resigns himself to climbing up the tree in Richie’s backyard to look into Richie’s window like a real fucking stalker, but all he’s greeted with are open curtains and an empty bedroom.

He sighs, annoyed that he went through all this trouble for nothing, and decides to check the arcade next.

He isn’t there either. 

He checks the quarry too, and when he’s still nowhere to be found, Eddie wants to scream a little from the frustration of it all. Did Richie leave the fucking state? He’s dramatic enough to try, but Eddie doesn’t think he actually go through with it. 

He decides to go home and scream into his pillow; he’s clearly not going to find Richie anytime soon, so why even fucking bother?

His mom is knitting in the living room when he arrives. “Hey, Ma,” he says, leaving his book bag at the foot of the stairs.

“Hello, Eddie Bear.” He ignores the pet name and kisses her on the cheek, telling her he’s going to sleep early. It’s only a little after seven. “Are you not feeling well?” she instantly worries, reaching up to feel his forehead.

He grabs her wrist before she can check his temperature. “No, Mommy, I’m fine. I slept badly last night,” he reassures her, already backing away. He’s lost his appetite for the day, so he lies. “I ate at Bill’s house before I came home, so don’t worry about dinner. I’m just going to rest.”

His mother eyes him as he grabs his bag before walking up the stairs. “Alright, sweetie. Goodnight.”

Eddie locks his bedroom door as soon as he enters, closing his eyes and leaning against the closed door with a sigh. He relaxes against it and only opens his eyes when he hears breathing, glancing toward his bed only to find Richie there, in typical fashion, fast asleep.

The evening daylight filters through his semi-closed curtains, and Eddie feels all the anger and frustration of the day seep out of him as he shuffles closer to the bed, sitting at the edge and looking at the sight of Riche’s peaceful face. 

“Idiot,” Eddie whispers, painfully fond, and climbs under the covers with him. 

“Hm?” Richie mumbles, shifting around without opening his eyes. “Whozzat?” 

Eddie chooses not to reply, instead waiting for Richie to look at him, but the stubborn bastard keeps his eyes shut.

“Mrs. K?” he rasps, lips quirking. “Knew you couldn’t resist me any longer. Just don’t let Eddie catch us in bed together.” 

Eddie huffs. “Hush.” He snuggles closer, but not close enough to let their bodies touch, still a little confused by the morning events. “It’s me, you moron,” he states unnecessarily. 

Richie’s eyes flutter open, blinking at Eddie like an overtired puppy. “Aye, ‘tis Eds,” he quips in his pirate voice. “Must offer me apologies fer this morn’.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Why weren’t you at school?”

Richie sighs, burrowing deeper into the bed. Eddie can’t bear to look away—Richie is always incredibly endearing when he’s sleepy.

“Hey, talk to me,” Eddie pleads when he doesn’t reply.

Richie’s eyes stay closed, but they screw shut even tighter, almost as if he’s in pain. Whispering to Eddie in the most pathetic voice, he utters, “Eds, I fucked up real bad.”

_The dramatics_, Eddie privately thinks before replying. “You didn’t.” He grows uncomfortable as he recalls the kiss, but decides to push past his personal feelings. “You kissed me. It’s whatever.”

Richie’s eyes open with surprise, focusing on Eddie’s face with intent. “Whatever?” Richie mocks, a shaped eyebrow arching. “Oh, because it’s totally normal for us to kiss.” 

He shrugs it off. “It’s not normal, I guess, but when have we ever been normal?” 

Richie sits up on an elbow. “That isn’t just something that friends _do_, Eddie. What, do you think I’m swapping spit with Stan in my spare time, too? That I’m fucking Bill in the backseat of his shitty Chevrolet?” 

Eddie is temporarily thrown. “Well… you’re not, are you?”

“No! What the fuck,” Richie exclaims, appalled. “You and I… We’re… we’re _guys_, and we—I kissed you, and”—he stops for a moment, then rushes out—“it’s okay if you hate me, it’s fine if you don’t want to be friends with me anymore, because I’m… I only came because I tried to fall asleep at home and it was so fucking _quiet _over there, so I came here and tried to calm the fuck down, but I can’t calm down because _I fucked up_—”

Eddie sits up at that, too. “No, you really didn’t.” He drags his hand through Richie’s bed hair in a soothing motion, wanting to calm him. “Can you stop saying that? I don’t hate you, jackass.”

“Can we pretend it never happened?” Richie asks, desperately. Eddie watches him with unwavering attentiveness, takes in the emotions that present themselves on Richie’s face for him to see. As much as he hides behind his wicked sense of humour, Richie is the most expressive person he knows and Eddie can read him like a well-loved novel. He reaches a subconscious knowing, then, that he’s never felt before. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s never felt more certainty that Richie holding in something game-changing, something important. He observes the way Richie chews at his lip, teeth digging into the fragile flesh like he’s physically attempting to contain himself.

Eddie shakes his head. “No, I can’t forget it,” he tells him, and then because Eddie has always been a bit braver than Richie, says on an instinctive whim: “I can’t forget about it, because I liked it.”

“You…” Richie starts, then quiets. He blinks up at Eddie owlishly, all dark eyelashes. “You—what?”

Eddie refuses to be embarrassed. “I liked it. What, has your brain stopped working? Catch up, nerd.”

Richie’s throat bobs, eyes suddenly going alert. “What are you trying to tell me?”

Eddie thinks he’s missing something here, something more groundbreaking than a kiss between two friends. “I don’t know,” Eddie shrugs, peering at Richie. “I just didn’t mind kissing you. It was a good kiss, and you’re my best friend, so...”

He can’t help but notice the dim in Richie’s demeanour. Normally, Richie would take the piss out of him and get cocky about it being a good kiss, but he looks like Eddie expects he would if he’d informed him that his cat died. If Richie had a cat, that is.

He doesn’t respond until Eddie nudges Richie’s at calf with his toes.

“Yeah, I liked it, too,” he admits, like Eddie didn’t already know that’s what the entire issue had been. “But…”

So there’s more.

“But?” Eddie prompts, curious.

“Idon’tthinkitwasforthesamereason.” Richie rushes out, so Eddie has to listen extra hard to understand what he’s saying. “I think I, y’know, that I like—” 

_That you like… what? _Eddie wonders, heart leaping into his throat. _Me?_

“I think,” Richie croaks, “that I like boys.”

_Oh_, Eddie thinks, feeling oddly disappointed. That makes more sense. Of course Richie doesn’t like Eddie like that, that would be a ridiculous assumption. Eddie understands, now. Richie had been dreaming about kissing someone, and had mentally used Eddie as a placeholder for the boy in his dreams because he had been sleeping in his room that same night. It had simply been a coincidence of time and place.

“Oh,” Eddie voices aloud. 

It’s the best he can do at that moment, but Richie looks at him with this heart-wrenching, terrified expression, and Eddie softens with understanding. 

“Oh, Rich,” Eddie murmurs, impossibly sad. “That’s okay.” He reaches out to cup his face with his hand, thumb soothing over his cheekbone to relax him. Richie is trembling. He’s so fucking scared, and Eddie doesn’t know how to make it better, throat going tight from the way Richie is shaking. He instinctively scoots closer, not knowing what else to say, but knowing that Richie needs his touch, if anything.

After a tense beat, in a wet voice, Richie asks him, “You’re not afraid that I’m going to like, infect you or something?”

“Richie, _no_,” Eddie replies, aghast. He can’t tell whether or not it’s a terrible joke, but he’s pretty sure Richie is scared enough to believe it to be true. “God, Richie, I know it doesn’t work like that.” And then, because he’s a little angry at the implication: “I’m _not _like my mom. Fuck, I would never…” Panic seizes at him, and he wonders what he’s done to make Richie think that he’d be disgusted by him. Is he like his mother? He tries so hard not to be. He knows his mom is full of shit; he’s always known that. Despite all of the bullshit she tries to force into his head, he knows there’s nothing wrong with Richie or those similar to him, that all she’s fed him are rumours and stereotypes and slander. 

Eddie’s distraught must be evident on his face, because Richie reaches out to hold his wrist, tears caught in his waterline. “No, Eds, that isn’t what I meant, I promise.”

“Then what did you mean?” 

“Nothing. I just thought… the stuff that people say about—about queers. That we’re nasty and to stay away or you’ll… get sick.” He swipes a thumb by his under-eyes quickly, and rubs at his face with the palm of his hands. “I was just scared—”

Eddie’s heart crumples in his chest. “Don’t be,” Eddie says, getting choked up too. Fuck, all the shit his mother has said about gay men was bullshit; he knew that before, but this makes it all the more clear. _Richie _is gay, his best friend, one of the few people in the world that is, by Eddie’s standards, a representation of everything inherently good. Richie might be obnoxious, persistent, and a full-blown potty-mouth, but Eddie also knows that Richie is the most caring person he knows. He loves his friends like they’re family, and has literally risked his own life for them. He sticks up for them all, even when they’re not around. Richie might be an annoying shit, but that’s what Eddie loves about him. That, and the fact that Richie loves with his entire being, like it’s his fucking job to make people laugh, to make them happy. How could someone who brings so much joy to his life be anything but _good_? “Those people don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. You’re the best person I know.”

Richie is crying openly now, despite his own attempts to compose himself. “I’m not, though. I kissed you. I took advantage of you. I kissed you when you didn’t want it. I know you’re not—like me.” _Gay_, Eddie’s mind supplies. Richie might still be too scared to say it aloud, but Eddie’s subconscious doesn’t have any qualms about using the term. 

“Rich, you were dreaming,” he tries, softly. “Please stop beating yourself up over it.”

“Yeah, but I still—I still.” Richie takes a gasping breath.

“You didn’t take advantage of me.”

“I—I wanted it.”

“Richie, no. I understand what happened,” Eddie tells him. “We’re friends, and I’m a guy. I was there while you were having a dream, right? We can’t help what we dream about.” 

Richie reddens. “Well, yes, but I—!”

“I know you don’t think of me like that,” he continues over him. “I was there at the right time. You don’t—”

“_I do_!” Richie bursts, leaving a startling silence in his aftermath. 

Eddie falters, but remains calm. “You do what?”

“I—I was thinking of you.”

“Yes…” Christ, Eddie deserves some kind of award for his patience. “Because you were asleep in my bed.”

“No,” Richie rasps. He hides his face in his hands, smothering himself, before stating in a very clear voice: “Because I like you.”

Eddie is no longer calm. What the _fuck_? _What the fuck?_

He doesn’t know what to say. Richie likes him? Richie likes _him_? The type of ‘like’ where he dreams about kissing him? _What_?

“Say something,” Richie mumbles, behind his hands. “Please. I want to die.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He’s honest, if anything. “I’m… surprised?”

Richie peaks through his fingers, shoulders relaxing a little. His glasses are all smudged now, tainted with fingerprints. “Aren’t you the smart one?” he asks, full of mirth and nerves. “Wow, I thought I was so obvious. I’m in love with an idiot.”

“_In love_?” Eddie blanches. 

Richie flounders. “I—oops. Uh, yeah.” He lowers his hands from his face, opting instead to wring them anxiously.

Eddie chokes, not sure if he remembers how to breathe. Turning suddenly, he grasps for his inhaler at his bedside, taking two puffing breaths when he brings it to his mouth. He doesn’t use it often nowadays, but sometimes he gets bouts of panic and it comes in handy. 

He feels like his entire world has tilted on its axis. He feels impossibly thrilled and flattered at the prospect of Richie liking him, but he doesn’t entirely know what to do with the information. Richie doesn’t like Stan, his other best friend, the one with impeccable dry wit. Not Mike, strong and sincere; nor Bill, their handsome, fearless leader. Not even Ben, the kindest, most thoughtful person they know. In the case of Bev—well, Eddie isn’t sure if she counts; he’s not even sure if Richie likes girls as well, now that he ponders upon it.

No. Richie likes _him_, for some bizarre reason. In fact, he loves him. Richie is in love with him.

Eddie does not understand.

It isn’t like Eddie is an insecure person, but he doesn’t quite get why someone like Richie likes someone like him. Richie has always been this untouchable force. He mightn’t’ve been the most handsome person at school, but what he lacks in looks he makes up for in his persona. It isn’t even as if Richie is ugly—he’s the type of person that you could easily find attractive, simply because of their fucking aura. He’d clearly grow into his looks once he stopped having a lanky, awkward phase.

Eddie has always felt a little out of place standing next to Richie, a little jealous.

He’s charming, impressive, and most definitely something to admire. And he likes _Eddie_.

“Do you want me to leave?” Richie asks, hoarse, when Eddie is silent for too long, lost in his thoughts. Eddie tries to meet Richie’s eyes, but he avoids eye contact. “I can leave. I made you uncomfortable.”

“No, no, please don’t leave.” Eddie wraps a hand around Richie’s wrist, not letting go. He might not know what to say, but he can’t let Richie leave this room without having a moment to think about what he actually wants to say. “I’m not uncomfortable,” he says, just to reassure him, but once the words leave his mouth he realizes they’re true. “It’s a lot at once, y’know? Shit, I’d be less surprised if you really _were _banging my mom.”

Richie relaxes a minuscule amount before smirking. “Actually—”

“Shut it,” Eddie says, lip twitching. “I need time to think. Is that alright? You can stay, I don’t mind. I’ll just take a shower, and then…” _We can talk_, Eddie wants to say, but feels like Richie would run if he actually voiced it. 

“I’m just going to leave,” Richie decides, tugging his hand away. Eddie’s fingers suddenly feel cold. “I’m sure you don’t want me here anyway, thinking about you in the shower.”

Eddie’s mouth goes dry. _It’s a joke. It’s a joke. _“Do you… do that?” he can’t help but ask, then mentally slaps himself. _You fucking idiot, why would you ask that?_

Richie’s eyes go wide, cheeks flushing. “_No_! Fookin’ hell, guv’nor, I got some respect!” 

Eddie isn’t entirely sure he believes him, but there’s too much other stuff to unpack from this conversation, so he lets it go. “Promise me you won’t leave,” he begs. “Promise me, Richie. Just give me thirty minutes.”

Richie looks at the ferocity in his eyes, and relents. “Okay,” he says, softly. “Thirty minutes.”

++

Turns out, thirty minutes is all it takes to disrupt everything Eddie has ever believed in.

He realizes in the shower, like it’s a premonition from God. Thinking hard about how he felt when Richie said what he did, and how he felt before that, too. Thing is, he’s always liked Richie in a way that is different from how he feels about his friends, but he never thought that feeling was something that required much introspection. Richie is his best friend, and that automatically makes him special. But maybe he’s special for reasons that Eddie hasn’t allowed himself to think about, too.

He’s always been jealous of Richie. Or so he had thought. Maybe he isn’t very jealous, now that he’s examined it. Maybe he’s something else.

Eddie has always thought of himself as somewhat self-aware, but he supposes he isn’t, really, if he’s lived half his childhood not fucking realizing that he—that he—_shit_—that he might feel like that too, if he just let himself. He doesn’t quite know when it happened, but it did, and it’s probably obvious to every fucking person on Earth that Eddie looks at Richie like he wants to rip him apart, piece by piece, and then devour him. Painfully and deliciously. 

Richie likes boys, and he doesn’t just plain like Eddie, he _loves _him. Knowing that makes Eddie want to crawl out of his skin. He feels sick with adoration and discomfort all at once. 

_Deep breaths, Kaspbrak_, he tells himself, until his pulse slows. _Time to be brave_.

++

He has a plan. He has a great plan, a plan to talk it out with Richie and gently break it to him that he might feel the same way, too, and this plan is going to _work_, it will, the plan—

The plan goes out the window the instant he looks at Richie once he’s back in his bedroom.

“I like you, too,” Eddie blurts, after shutting the door and locking it.

Richie stares at him. “What?”

He can’t take it back now. Whatever. Fuck the plan. It’s not like it’s any less true now that he’s admitted it to someone other than himself. “I just realized in the shower,” he admits, knowing it sounds ridiculous.

Richie scrunches his nose, long limbs folded under his chin, like he wants to crawl inside himself and never come out. “Is this a joke? It’s not funny,” he says in a tiny voice.

Eddie’s heart clenches at the vulnerability. “Not joking. I wouldn’t joke about this, Rich.” Richie is the tallest person that Eddie knows, but with the way he’s curled up right now, he looks incredibly small. 

Richie is such an idiot, such a ridiculous human being, and yet. And yet, God, he’s still… _Richie_. Eddie wants to kiss him everywhere.

He wants, he wants, he _wants_.

“Kiss me again,” he requests, breathless. He’s never been more sure of what he wants than he does in this moment.

The more they speak, the more Richie looks like he wants to faint. “_What_?”

This plan is even crazier than the one before it, but maybe it’ll work. “I’ll prove it to you, that I want this. Kiss me again.”

“Um.” Richie seems to be at a loss for words. Eddie moves to stand beside the bed, waiting for Richie to uncurl and throw his legs over the side of it. “Are you sure?”

Eddie nods. He places his hands on Richie’s shoulders, rubbing at them in a relaxing motion. “I want it.”

Richie makes this deep sound in his throat. Eddie wants him to make it again. He moves closer, choosing to stand between Richie’s legs. He’s almost looming down at him in this position, and for once, he feels tall. Tall and sure and certain. He can hear the blood rushing through his ears, adrenaline at an all-time high.

There’s no going back, after this. He knows that by doing this, he’s leaving what he knew of himself behind, becoming someone he isn’t quite acquainted with yet, someone that had been inside him all along. And he’s ready.

“Do you want me to brush my teeth first?”

“Huh?” Eddie asks, distracted by the colour of Richie’s eyes.

“My teeth,” Richie mumbles. “Should I brush them?”

Of all the fucking times to ask that. He doesn’t ask when his breath stinks from eating an entire bag of Funyuns, but he asks now. He hides a smile, pleased by how considerate it had been of him to ask. “No, no. Just do it.”

Richie looks terrified, tilting his head up toward Eddie’s, eyes bug-eyed behind his glasses. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’ll do it myself,” Eddie mutters, before leaning down to capture Richie’s bottom lip between his.

Richie’s mouth falls open on a gasp, likely shocked by how quickly things have unfolded, but Eddie uses that to deepen the kiss. Instincts take over, and Eddie doesn’t let himself think. He doesn’t let himself get caught up in the logistics and how well he’s doing it. It’s only his second kiss, and he thinks it’s okay, even if it’s a bit dry. He licks outside of Richie’s lips to remedy that, a thrill going through him at the shudder he gets in response. He does it again and again, licking and licking until he’s inside Richie’s mouth now, tasting him, biting his lips, pressing himself closer until he’s sure that all the bacteria in his mouth is now in Richie’s and vice versa. He’s not sure why he’s not more freaked out by that. It might even be hot, if he was being honest about it. Before he’s even aware of it, he’s suddenly seated on the bed, too, in Richie’s lap, and he’s not sure how that happened, either. He pushes Richie down against the bed, crawling over him, fisting his hands in Richie’s hair. Richie moans, and Eddie kisses him harder, sucking at his full lips now, relishing in the feeling of Richie’s hands on his back, burning through his pajamas. He rolls them over until he’s lying with the pillow near his head, pulling Richie along with his arms and legs so that he’s pressing up against his body.

Richie, as shocked as he was when Eddie first asked him to kiss him, gives it as good as he’s getting it. Eddie isn’t surprised. With Richie’s teeth nipping at Eddie’s lips, he realizes that the way they kiss is the perfect embodiment of their relationship: passionate, argumentative, playful, and relentless.

He pulls back, realizing he’s forgotten an essential part of kissing: knowing when to breathe.

“Fuck,” Richie says as both of them pant into the air. Richie rolls to lie beside him; his glasses are crooked and smudged from Eddie’s face. Because Eddie was pressed against Richie’s face. Holy shit. “_Wow_, that was…”

“Uh huh,” Eddie replies, distracted by how dishevelled Richie seems. Both of them look kiss-stupid and happier than ever.

Richie is staring at the ceiling in shock. “That was the best thing that’s happened to me.”

Eddie grins, chest still heaving, and thinks, _Same_.

Richie turns toward him, looking at Eddie with awe and wonder and hope. “You really like me, too?”

He could go on forever about why Richie is his favourite person, but it isn’t that which makes him sure. Instead, he reflects on how warm it makes him inside, simply thinking of Richie’s lips against his own, and he’s pretty sure that’s answer enough. “I’m sure,” Eddie promises. He scoots closer to nuzzle Richie’s face with his own, feeling kitten-like.

“Hey,” Richie starts, tentative. He’s looking at Eddie with a question in his eyes. “You don’t need to answer, but…”

“What is it?”

“Are you…?”

Eddie waits, tracing the line Richie’s jaw with the tip of his finger.

“I know we just kissed. And you’ve suffered brain damage or something, because apparently you like me?” Richie says, disbelievingly. “But I’m wondering. Are you… like me?”

Eddie ponders upon this, knowing what Richie is asking but not quite sure of the answer. “What’s like you?” Eddie asks to stall for time.

Richie shrugs, shooting Eddie a sly smile. “Well, I think I’d prefer getting banged by your dad, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy your mom’s sweet, tender lovin’ as well.”

“Pretty sure that both of my parents, one of whom is _dead_, which you are _aware _of, want nothing to do with you.”

He laughs, capturing Eddie’s hand which has been absentmindedly lingering on the contours of Richie’s face. “Can’t say the same for their son, huh?”

Eddie can feel his skin overheating. “Their son should probably get his sanity checked,” he says without heat, then answers the real question at heart. “And I don’t think he knows. If he’s… y’know.”

“You don’t need to have all the answers right now.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we aren’t talking about me, then,” Eddie says, haughtily. “_I _know everything.”

Richie, thankfully, chooses to sidestep one awkward conversation to focus on another. “_Soooo_,” he sing-songs. “Was I your first kiss?”

“Oh.” Eddie is surprised he remembered. “Yeah. I… kind of forgot about that part in the moment.”

Richie jitters his leg. “Was it good?” he asks, forced casual, playing with Eddie’s fingers.

Eddie smiles despite himself. “Could’ve been better,” he teases. Their faces are so close; he can identify every fleck of colour in Richie’s eyes.

Richie pouts. “_Mean_. I said it was the best thing to happen to me, and you just left me hanging. Didn’t even say it back!”

Eddie knows they’re just kidding around, but he feels a need to reassure him regardless. “Nah, it… itwasgood,” he says quickly, licking his lips.

He expects Richie to smirk and make a joke out of it. It’s what he always expects Richie to do; it’s just who he is, the type of person to make light of vulnerable comments. It isn’t a bad thing, and he doesn’t do it maliciously. He’s just the type of person who brings levity to every situation, only to put people at ease.

But it’s almost like something has taken over Richie since he kissed Eddie that morning. Instead, he turns his face into the covers, hiding a shy smile.

Eddie feels his heart burst. He doesn’t know what’s come over Richie, but he can’t help but feel flattered that he gets to see Richie like this, that Richie has chosen to trust him with his heart. Back before the kiss, he would sometimes wonder how Richie would be when he actually liked someone. Turns out, he’s the same old Richie, just... more. Better. 

He presses a kiss to Richie’s temple, closing his eyes. He can’t believe that he’ll get this version of Richie, too.

//

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarification’s sake: I’ve depicted Richie as gay in this. He plays off the sexuality inquiries with jokes because he’s young and dealing with some hefty internalized homophobia and repression. Obviously, this was written from Eddie’s point of view, so I couldn’t tackle Richie’s issues as far in depth as I did with Eddie, but I want this to be clear to readers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends! I really loved the comments I got on the first part. Thank you so much to everyone giving this a read! The final instalment will be posted when I’m finished with it, hopefully sometime soon.

**PART II**   
  


Eddie is, quite frankly, amazed by how much he wants. 

After his period of repression ends, he allows himself an honest moment to indulge. And when he peels back all the layers, it boils down to one single thing: what he wishes to indulge in, more than anything, is Richie.

His lips, his legs, his stupid arms, which are, horrifyingly, something that Eddie is attracted to. His mind enters overdrive, a constant spiral of Richie Tozier. Somehow, the kissing has unlocked this hidden demon inside of him. A fucking _sex demon_. It’s unsettling, thinking about himself in that respect, but it’s nothing but the truth. He’s spinning out of control, no longer caring about the consequences—an unusual occurrence for Eddie—and he’s been weakened by the intensity of his desire.

He’s cursed to a lifetime of a defunct brain, a brain that will not stop playing on loop how it felt to be kissed, and to kiss in return.

He’d always thought of himself as a chaste, non-sexual person, but it seems as if this innate passion had been inside him all along, waiting for the right person to come along and be wanted. And of course that person had to be Richie.

++

If he’s being sincere, Eddie had not expected for the fire inside him to burn even brighter a month later. He’d thought, if anything, that it would dim a bit, that the novelty of kissing and touching might wear out. He’d thought that he might go back to how he’d felt before.

He’d thought—or, to be more sombre, he’d hoped.

He hasn’t voiced this to Richie, and he doesn’t think that he ever will. Going off the nerves that Richie had felt when he opened up to him, it would devastate him, and Eddie doesn’t believe that complete transparency is necessary in this context. Sometimes it’s more important to protect loved ones. He’s working it out on his own; he’s trying to. He can do it, just as Richie did.

In the meantime: he kisses, he touches, and he lets himself dream.

He listens to his instincts, tries his best not to hold back when he finds himself needing something. Most of all, he surprises himself every time, discovers what he likes when he’s being truthful in the privacy of his own mind.

And—wow, he knew it to be true when he said it aloud, but he really, really likes Richie. He likes him _so much_. He’s positive that he’s going stupid with it, losing bits of his old self the more that he looks at Richie, the more that he touches him.

He feels fucking ridiculous, but he really cannot help it. He takes one look at Richie and wants to eat him alive. It’s becoming a _problem_.

“I thought I was your first kiss,” Richie says around a moan. His neck extends backward, elongating to give Eddie more space to work. He licks at his Adam’s apple, biting and licking downward until he needs to tug on the scoop neck of his graphic tee so that he can suck a bruise into Richie’s skin.

(It’s these points that make Eddie feel astonished. The animalistic need to claim Richie, not knowing where it’s come from. He yearns for Richie to go home, look at the marks he’s left, and remember that it’s Eddie who gave them to him.)

It’s after the third hickey that Richie pulls him back by the hair, gasping. “How the fuck are you so _good _at this?”

“_Shh_.” Eddie says the hush into his collarbone, before biting down hard.

“Shit, you’re so good, you’re so good,” Richie groans. Eddie can’t help but smirk, pleased with his achievement. His blood sings under his skin, basking in the praise. Richie’s mouth runs so much when they’re fooling around, and Eddie has yet to get used to it; half the time it feels like Richie is talking to himself, that he needs to speak out loud to give himself another thing to focus on before he truly loses it.

“I’m such a fool for thinking I’d ever be able to shut you up,” he says, leaving kisses along Richie’s shoulder. “So fucking chatty.” His eyes catch Richie’s, and he feels his breath catch at the molten gaze.

“Come back up here,” Richie whispers, tugging at Eddie’s hair. Eddie goes easily, allowing Richie kiss him deeper and harder until they’re rolling over each other in Richie’s bed, tangling together until they’re wrapped up in each other. “You taste so sweet. What is that?”

Eddie pulls back to give him a look. “Fruit,” he answers, deadpan. “If you ever ate one, maybe you’d taste sweet too.” He nips playfully at Richie’s lip, hoping that he realizes he’s kidding around. Richie doesn’t taste bad at all; he tastes more like the sugary cereal he had for a snack after school, and Eddie is slightly obsessed with it.

“Hey, I eat fruit!” Richie exclaims. Eddie cocks an eyebrow. “Fruit roll-ups.”

Eddie snorts, kissing Richie harder for that. “Dumb,” he says, fondly. He adjusts their positions so that he can straddle him, takes a second to revel in how good Richie looks under him.

Richie’s hands find home on Eddie’s hips. “How do you manage to make that sound like a pet name?” Richie asks in amusement. “I call you all kinds of cute stuff, but all I get is _idiot, asshole, sexy bastard_…”

Eddie laughs, leaning down to press a kiss into Richie’s sternum. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you slipping ‘sexy’ in there.”

“As if you can resist all of _this_,” Richie jokes, gesturing to his body and in turn showing off an amusing lack of muscle. Self-deprecation aside, Eddie finds Richie’s body incredibly attractive. He likes his long legs, the large splay of his hands, the character of his nose, the sharpness of his jawline, the fullness of his lips, and the wildness of his curls. Richie is the best combination of soft and hard and Eddie can’t get enough.

He hums. “I’ve never approved of any of the so-called ‘cute stuff’ that you call me.”

“That may be so, my little blueberry muffin, but I know that you love it.”

Eddie hides his grin into Richie’s chest. “You’re the worst.”

“Hey, blueberry is a fruit,” Richie mentions at random. Eddie’s too used to his frazzled mind to be startled. “I eat blueberry muffins. I’m basically the pinnacle of heath.”

Eddie rises from his place to mouth at him in question, ‘_Pinnacle of health?_’

Richie shrugs, grin smug. “It’s an SAT word.”

“Jesus, you nerd,” Eddie mutters. “It’s annoying how smart you are.”

“Right back at’chya, sugarplum.” Richie winks.

“_So _annoying.”

“What if I called you ‘Edward’?” His fingertips graze under Eddie’s shirt. “Imagine we’re fooling around and I moan, ‘_Take me, Edward_.’”

“What the fuck?” Eddie giggles, shifting his hips against Richie’s. “This isn’t a bodice ripper. Shut the fuck up.”

“That not doing it for you?” Richie grins. “Those books aren’t so bad. I read one of my mom’s once. It was very educational.” He wiggles his eyebrows comically.

Eddie pauses, imagining Richie stealing his mother’s erotica novel to read in secrecy, and stifles a laugh. “How so?”

“I learned a _lot_,” Richie replies, with a leer. “I can dirty talk the shit out of you, Eds.” He turns them over so he’s halfway on top of Eddie, a thigh between his legs.

Eddie’s heart races, but he knows Richie’s full of it. He goads him on, purely out of curiosity. “Bullshit.”

Richie brightens. He clears his throat, then says in the most exaggerated, sultry voice he can muster: “Oh, Edward, I love the feeling of your _aching __hardness _pressed against me.”

Eddie loses it in a fit of laughter.

“Still no? Huh. How about this,” Richie clears his voice, and does the voice again. “Yeah, fuck me, split me open on that big cock.”

Eddie’s dick twitches despite inner protests. It’s outrageous, but he doesn’t find that one so terrible. “I cannot get it up after that,” Eddie lies, feeling mortified that, in actuality, he can.

Richie cants his hips, a glint in his eyes. “I beg to differ.” Eddie curses the fact that they’re both in casual clothes, Richie in sweats and Eddie in shorts, and are so close that they can feel each other’s every movement. Betrayed by his own dick. “It looks like _little _Eddie is liking this.”

He leaves his face carefully blank. Two can play at this game. “It’s strictly a reaction to the idea of being inside of you,” he says, matter-of-fact.

Richie stills, all amusement disappearing, then asks: “Would you want that?”

Eddie almost makes a joke out of it, but the look on Richie’s face is so genuine that he can’t bear to. “One day,” he admits, because he thinks it’s important that Richie knows it.

“So…” Richie’s fingers comb through Eddie’s hair, and then their eyes lock. He gets so intense sometimes, like he’s surprised that Eddie is still here, deliberately choosing to keep kissing him. “You want to have sex with me?”

Eddie’s lips twitch against his own volition. “It’s like I have to repeat things fifty times for it to get through that head of yours. _Yes_, Richie, I want to have sex with you. Not right now, but like… we’ll get there.”

Richie hums. He’s an interesting combination of pleased and bewildered. “What about… the other way around?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean if you fucked me?” Eddie says, conversationally. Richie makes a strangled noise in his throat at the straightforwardness, and Eddie has to keep himself from laughing. “Sure. Either is good.”

Richie is wordless for a while. Eddie lets him take time to contemplate, unsure of how he’ll take the disclosure. Is he being too forward? He never thought such a thing was possible with Richie, but he’s beginning to realize that it is.

Richie’s sense of humour consists purely on dick jokes and sexual banter, but when it comes to taking serious action or discussing the real thing, he’s been reserved. And by reserved, Eddie means that they’ll be lost in kissing and Richie will pull away the moment he begins to pop a boner. Not entirely—he’ll continue kissing him, and he’ll let his hands explore above the waist—but he’s been refusing to let Eddie actually _feel _him get hard, consistently angling his lower body away each time.

If he really thinks about it, the last time Eddie could remember feeling Richie hard against him was actually the first time they kissed. He still remembers it, the way Richie rubbed on him without holding back, too tired to realize what he’d been doing.

He wants it to happen again, but it’s impossible considering how careful Richie is choosing to be with him.

Richie voices how much he wants sex all the time, and Eddie’s pretty positive that it’s not all a joke, so he has no idea what’s going through his head. The only reasoning he can think of is that Richie is attempting to be considerate of Eddie’s boundaries—but the real irony is that he doesn’t think he has any.

Richie’s eyes have been glazing over, like he’s thinking about it happening right then and there. “Wow. I’m… kind of surprised.”

“Surprised by what?”

“I thought you’d think sex is too, like, gross or something.” Richie shrugs, sheepish.

Eddie brushes the hair from Richie’s face, needing to look at him properly. “Well, there are ways to get clean. Also, it’s not like either of us have had sex, so there’s no real concern for medical issues…”

“Are you kidding?” Richie says, loud and bright. “I’ve fucked tons of people! My dick is probably going to fall off from all the action it’s getting.”

Eddie gags. “That’s disgusting.”

And untrue, he hopes.

“I’m only kidding, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie gives him a too-soft peck. “Your noodle is the only match for my meatballs.”

Eddie shakes his head in disapproval. “You have as much game as a corpse,” he says. “Which is disappointing, considering how often you talk about your dick.”

Richie’s look of fake-offense is too cute. “That’s _rude_—_mmph_.” Eddie cuts him off, kissing him deeply, hands fisting in his curls. He goes to straddle Richie, changing their position for what feels like the tenth time. Making out with Richie usually goes like this, both of them rolling each other over like they’re play fighting.

Eddie loves it.

More than that, though, he likes knowing how nonsensical Richie gets when they kiss, like he’s losing his grasp on basic human functioning. He wants him to reduce him to that all the time—without filter, without hesitations, just pure Richie.

He pulls away to get his hand under Richie’s shirt, rucking it up so that he can feel the soft skin of Richie’s stomach. He may not be very muscled, and there aren’t any abs, but Eddie thinks that he almost prefers it like that.

Richie stares at him with dark eyes, and Eddie can feel himself flush. He loves the way Richie looks at him; it makes him wonder how _he _looks when he looks at Richie, too. “You’re so fucking scrawny,” he says, knowing his true feelings are all over his face, anyway, so it won’t matter what comes out of his mouth. It also comes out too softly for it to be a true gripe, so he’s not fooling anyone. Bending down to leave wet kisses on Richie’s stomach, he relishes in the hissing sound he gets in reply. He drags his nails down the skin, watching the red lines that are left in its wake. “God, you’re so soft everywhere.”

“There’s one thing that _isn’t_—”

He slaps a hand over Richie’s mouth to stop him, quick as lightning, and something unexpected happens. Richie _moans_.

Eddie’s breath hitches, and he’s suddenly hyper-aware of how their bodies are touching. He’d just done it as a joke, to shut Richie up for good, but sitting on him like this, he can literally feel how much Richie likes it—how much he likes the hand over his mouth, forcing him quiet.

He feels heady with the knowledge that he’s discovered something that Richie likes, that Richie got hard because of him.

And most of all, Richie can’t angle his body away in his position; instead, he’s trapped beneath him, with nowhere to go.

Eddie grinds down as a test, and relishes in the sweet moan that Richie gives him in return, the shiver, the roll of his eyes back into his head, like he’s loving it. His mouth goes dry just from watching him. “Oh, my God,” Eddie whispers wildly, and then does it again, harder. His shorts are hitching up his legs because of the movement, exposing more skin, but Eddie can’t bring himself to give a fuck; he’s zoned into the feeling of Richie’s dick, rubbing back and forth against the cleft of his ass.

For a frightening moment, the thought that maybe Richie doesn’t want this comes to him. He removes his hand from Richie’s mouth in haste, asking him in a quiet voice, “Do you like this?”

People typically ask that in a sexy way, but he genuinely wants to know, silently pleads in his head, _please say yes, please say yes_.

And Richie, swallowing, gives a sweet nod yes.

“Jesus,” Eddie murmurs, grinding down forcefully in vindication.

Richie’s lips, bitten red from want, part from the feeling. Normally, he can’t stop talking, but he’s not saying a goddamn thing right now, struck dumb in a suspended state. His hands are splayed over Eddie’s bare thighs, grasping for purchase like he’s desperately attempting to find mental strength through his physical. It’s barely been two minutes of them doing this, but he’s losing it beneath him, moving his hips like he can’t even help himself, like it feels too good to stop.

“You’re so hot,” Eddie breathes, needing him to _know_. Richie has never looked better, more beautiful, than he does in this moment, thoroughly falling apart from the barest of touches. They haven’t even taken their clothes off and he’s out of his mind. 

“Fuck, _Eds_,” Richie replies. He makes this deep noise in his throat, sounding as if he’s hurt, expression pinching almost in pain. But Eddie’s sure he’s not in pain—no, that’s an expression of desire, one that Eddie will never forget.

He’s not getting anything from this, but he doesn’t care, focused solely on making Richie feel more. He adjusts them, rising and lowering himself again, and then there he is—there is Richie’s cock, right there between the cheeks of Eddie’s ass. It doesn’t matter that it’s through layers of clothing, because it feels like he’s right there and it suddenly feels really fucking _good_, just imagining the idea of there being no barriers between them and feeling the insistent way that Richie moves against him.

“I’m—!” Richie chokes. “_Fuck_, oh—”

His eyes are going wet, too turned on to get a grasp on his emotions. He can’t believe what’s happening, feels as if it’s some out of body experience, can’t connect the fact that he’s the person rolling their hips down on Richie without abandon. Richie is so fucking hard in his sweatpants, and Eddie can feel _everything_, can feel the heat of his cock, the slightest twitch of it. He wants it so badly, thinks about how hot it’d be if there were no clothes, and it’s that which makes him rut down harder.

“_Please_,” Richie cries, brokenly. He digs his fingers into Eddie’s hips, trying to still the rocking movements. “If you don’t stop I’m going to—I’m going to—”

_He’s going to come_, Eddie thinks.

He thinks, he thinks—he wants.

As Richie attempts to get himself under control, Eddie realizes something important about himself. He realizes that he doesn’t actually care about how gross it would be for Richie to come in his pants. In fact, Eddie doesn’t just want to see it happen, he wants to _feel _it happening beneath him. It should be disgusting, considering every aspect of the person he is, but thinking of how messy Richie would get like that, how desperate he’d have to be to do it, unleashes some undomesticated beast inside him.

He doesn’t know what’s happening to him. All he knows is that he wants this, and he’s going to get it.

“I want this,” he rasps, thinking out loud. Eddie’s dick is straining against his shorts, tenting them, and he reaches down to offer himself friction and relief. Richie’s mouth drops open in shock, eyes wet from lust, looking like a wet dream. He thinks Richie needs to hear it, too, so he says it again. “You’re gonna come, yeah? I want it, Rich, please.”

Richie sobs, and Eddie doesn’t think he remembers how to breathe.

It happens so quickly.

He looks on, watching in awe as Richie’s body seizes, arches, as he comes. 

The blood rushes through Eddie’s ears, and suddenly he feels like he’s floating above them both, like he’s high off of the sounds Richie is making and a shocking sexual epiphany. He presses his heel at his dick through his shorts, watching Richie, over and over again until comes along with him.

He collapses beside him.

Holy _fuck_, he isn’t sure what just happened or how that unfolded so quickly, is shaken by the events, but more than that, his heart is full knowing that Richie got like that because of him, and that they’ve both shared something that they haven’t with anyone else.

A quiet settles into the room, one filled with the sound of them getting a hold of their breathing.

“Oh, my God,” Richie whispers, and then repeats it over and over again in a panicked voice until Eddie grabs his face between both hands, forcing him to look at him. “Holy shit, holy shit, what—”

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him, softly, breathing still irregular. “Don’t freak out, please. I wanted it, too.”

Richie breathes hard, eyes wide with surprise. He looks down at Eddie’s shorts, as if to check that it really happened, and gasps at the wet spot like a punch to the gut. “I can’t believe _I’m _the one freaking out about this, what kind of fucking alternate universe.”

“There’s no reason to freak out,” Eddie says, too soft from what has transpired to feel weird about the fact that his come is drying in his pants. “It was nice.”

“Nice?” Richie repeats, sounding hysterical. “It was…”

“Hot?” Eddie suggests again, lip quirking. His body feels liquid, like he’s relaxing his muscles after running a marathon.

Richie stares. “Am I dreaming again?”

Eddie smacks up upside the head, playful. “For fuck’s sake, Richie, get it together.”

“Sorry! Sorry. I just can’t believe you let that happen and didn’t think it was…”

“Gross,” he finishes, because, well, it is. But it also isn’t, in a weird way.

Richie bites his lip. “Why aren’t you freaked out?”

“I don’t know.” He steadies his breathing, reflecting on how he felt in the moment. “I think I wanted it too much to be freaked out by it.”

Richie blinks at him. “Wow. That’s—I’m—wow,” he says, lacking eloquence.

Eddie kisses between his eyebrows, endeared. “It’s okay, Rich.” Burying his face in the crook of his neck, he places a hand over Richie’s heart, letting their pulses settle together.

He’ll repeat it as many times as Richie needs to hear it, if that’s what it takes—until he truly believes it.

++

So, they don’t do it again. Somewhat because Eddie thinks that Richie needs a moment to mentally prepare for it happening again, but mostly because while it’s quite fun to happen in the moment, it’s absolutely disgusting to clean up their clothes afterward.

In the meantime, Eddie makes a list. A hypothetical list, but a list nonetheless. A list of things of that they _should _do together. It’s fairly extensive, which is not something that he would’ve expected had he thought to create it before. But beyond that, it’s also… shameless. That’s the only word for it: it’s _shameless_, but coincidentally, all Eddie feels when he thinks of it _is _shame.

It turns out that Eddie is total freak when it comes to sex. Or, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but he’s much more of a freak than he expected of himself, much more than he thinks Richie will imagine him to be, and a hundred times more than what the average person might predict from Eddie Kaspbrak, local hypochondriac, as well.

As time passes and he allows his self-imposed walls to come down, he reaches the conclusion that he’s quite different than the person he thought he was, after all.

++

Richie is being annoying.

In a surprise turn of events, it’s not from Richie intending to be annoying, either. Instead, it’s from the way he’s being restrained and quiet and wound-up tight—like he’s been psyching himself up to say something for hours, but still hasn’t brought himself to do it.

Eddie fucking hates it. He’s sitting at his desk working on an English essay while Richie completes calculus homework, sprawled over his bed, and it’s the insistent _tap, tap, tap _of Richie’s pencil for ten whole minutes that makes Eddie finally lose it.

“Oh, my God,” Eddie blurts when it becomes too much. “What is it?”

Richie stills, looking thrown. “Huh?”

“You’re all jittery,” Eddie points out. Richie, in response, looks like a scared wild animal. It makes Eddie go into instant protective mode; he wants to comb through Richie’s hair until he melts under his hands, so he moves from his spot to hop onto the bed with him.

“I’m fine,” Richie lies.

“You aren’t,” Eddie counters. What does he take him for, a fool? “You get like this when you’re stressed. What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” Richie says, but Eddie had a strong feeling that he did.

He rakes his fingers through Richie’s curls, spiralling one through his finger. Richie is a bit like a cat—in constant need of attention, and thoroughly adorable. All he needs is a little bit of petting and he’ll dissolve like putty. Eddie gives him a kiss on the crown of his head, then says in the cutest voice he can muster, “Please tell me, Rich?”

Richie peeks at him, and Eddie gives him the sad eyes. “Ugh,” Richie mutters. “How can someone so tiny be so evil?”

Eddie grins. “It’s how I lure in my victims,” he teases, kissing Richie again so that he’ll stop feeling putout. “C’mon, sweetheart, talk to me.”

Richie tenses. After throwing his notebook on the floor, he shrugs Eddie off of him. “You don’t have to sweet-talk me.”

Eddie, oddly enough, feels hurt by this. “I’m not trying to sweet-talk you,” he replies, in a small voice. “I just want you to talk to me.”

“I’m going to,” Richie says, like that solves everything. “You don’t have to butter me up.”

He’s not sure what he did to deserve that. Suddenly, Eddie feels defensive, and he’s not sure over what. “It’s not like you have a monopoly on pet names, Richie.”

“I do when it’s stuff like _that_,” Richie throws back. “You never call me cute shit. That’s _my _thing. I don’t know why you’ve started to do it.”

Eddie is missing something, he’s sure of it. Taken aback by the direction this conversation has moved in, he scoots back on the bed so he can put some space between them. “Jesus, Richie, is it that serious?”

“Yes!” Richie says, dramatic as ever. “It is! It _is_.”

“I called you _one _name!” Eddie says, loudly. “What is your problem?”

“My _problem_,” Richie snaps, “is that people only call each other that shit when they’re fucking dating.”

This, more than anything, hurts Eddie the most. “If we aren’t dating, then what the fuck do you call this?”

Richie opens his mouth as if he already had comeback on hold, then seems to take in what Eddie has said, and closes his mouth again. And repeats this action like a stupid gaping fish. “Wait, what?”

“_What_.” Eddie says, voice flat and hard. “Oh, my God. Is that what this is about? That’s why you’re picking a fight?”

Richie, for a second, is speechless.

“Oh, my God,” Eddie repeats. “Did you not fucking realize we’re together?”

Richie’s sole defense after finding his voice is: “We never talked about it.”

Eddie pulls his knees against his chest, breathing hard. “So you couldn’t ask? Instead you choose to get mad at me for something I didn’t do?”

Richie, looking appropriately ashamed, seems to lack a reply.

“Oh, God,” Eddie whispers, when the realization comes to him. He reaches forward to grab Richie’s wrist, needing him to look him in the eye. “If you didn’t know, then… are you… have you been with other people?”

He hates how pathetic he sounds, but he can’t help but feel broken by the idea that they haven’t been on the same page. He thought they had been—hell, Richie had told him he loved him, hadn’t he? Eddie had been ignoring that part since he’d said it, but it was only so he could take a moment to figure out the depth of his own feelings.

Richie crawls over to him, placing his hands on Eddie’s knees, touch gentle and face apologetic. “Eds, no,” Richie murmurs. “You know how I feel about you.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Richie cuts off. “I love you.” Eddie loses his breath; he hasn’t heard it since Richie first told him. “I haven’t been with anyone else. I don’t _want _to be with anyone else. That’s why I was upset, because I kept thinking that maybe I’m alone in—in feeling like this, and that—”

_For someone so smart_, Eddie thinks, _he’s really fucking stupid_.

“I’m going to kiss you, now,” Eddie warns, before leaning forward to capture Richie’s lips between his.

He pours everything he has into the kiss, every little bit of emotion that’s inside of him, all the feelings he has for Richie that he hasn’t voiced yet. He feels sad that Richie hasn’t realized yet, how gone Eddie is for him. He’d thought it was obvious from how they acted when they were in private. It turns out Richie needs him to verbalize these things, or he won’t infer it from Eddie’s actions.

He pulls back, holding Richie’s face between his hands, pressing their foreheads together and refusing to let go. Eddie sneaks in another kiss, this one too gentle to be mistaken for anything other than pure love, and when he opens his eyes, Richie is already looking at him.

“Sorry for being dumb,” Richie whispers.

Eddie pecks him once more, softly. “Richie, I want you to remember this.”

And Richie looks at him openly, all his guards lowered after kissing. That’s his favourite part about kissing Richie, how he looks at Eddie afterward, like he’s ready to give his heart away all over again. Eddie wishes he could be as generous as Richie is with his heart—he wishes that he didn’t protect himself so strongly, afraid of being hurt by everyone and everything. He wants to give Richie what he’s given him.

Eddie gathers everything inside him and presents it to Richie in one single phrase: “I’m in love with you.” Richie sucks in a breath, eyes wide, and Eddie thumbs at the side of his face, shaking his head with a smile. “C’mon, Rich. You’re surprised I love you? Of course I do. It’s you and me.”

Richie surges forward, kissing him hard, almost as if he’s thankful. Eddie is helpless but to kiss him back with every ounce of strength he possesses.

“You’re mine,” Eddie whispers between kisses, and Richie hums happily in reply. “_Mine_, okay? We’re together.” He wants him to remember this moment and never forget it.

Richie whimpers into the kiss, like he can’t believe it. Eddie moves over him, pressing him into the bed, hovering over his body, one of his legs thrown over Richie’s. He can feel how hard Richie is in his jeans, and it makes him tremble with want. It’s like the knowledge that they love each other and are dating has unlocked a new side of Eddie, a side that’s sure of what they have. A side that gets to touch whenever he wants to.

“I want you,” Eddie murmurs, itching to get his hands all over him. “Please, _please_, Richie, can I touch you?”

“_Yes_, yes, yes,” Richie pants, so many times that it sounds like a beg.

Eddie trails his hands down Richie’s torso, inching closer until he can skim over his bulge, cups him with a small amount of pressure and rubs his thumb back and forth over it. He and Richie haven’t done this yet, but he’s been thinking about it since they kissed six weeks ago, has dreamt of Richie allowing him to touch his dick, of getting Richie’s hand around his own.

His thoughts make him feel even more frenzied, pushing the zipper down and unbuttoning Richie’s pants with a speed he didn’t know he contained, and slipping his hand inside to feel over his boxers. He’s so warm inside there, and he can feel how hard Richie is inside his underwear.

Fuck, he wants even more than this. He shoves Richie’s clothes down until his cock springs free from its confinements, red and drooling at the tip like it’s begging for Eddie’s attention. He stares in shock, like he can’t believe that he’s gotten to this place somehow, overcome with how much he wants in this moment.

“Please,” Richie rasps, and that’s all it takes.

“God, Richie,” Eddie whispers, unsure of how else he can voice how desperate he is to get him off. His hands reach out to touch slowly, fingers trailing over the length of Richie. It feels good. Eddie didn’t know he would like this, the feeling of someone’s dick in his hands, but he does. In some strange way, Richie’s dick feels hot and smooth and like it was meant to end up in his hand all along. He’s pretty sure that’s not true, but he can’t help but think about it like that when he’s taking his time to touch him, getting used to how his fingers feel against the velveteen skin.

He flicks his wrist like he does to his own cock when he jerks off, and Richie makes this hot little noise, like he’s losing his mind.

Eddie’s ears burn with the realization that his hands look small around Richie’s dick. The girth is actually impressive, and he’s long. Long and thick and hard as fuck.

Eddie is _salivating_.

He listens as Richie rambles on, “you’re amazing—_oh_, Eds—you’re fucking perfect,” living for how drunken Richie seems after he touches him. The little that was left of his personal filter has dissolved completely; the jokes disappear and all that’s left of him are compliments, all of them for Eddie.

As he fists Richie’s cock in his hand, he realizes that the grip is a bit too dry—Richie is cut at the tip, and he doesn’t produce as much pre-come as Eddie does, not having been uncircumcised. He knows that he could use lotion to slicken the motions, or maybe even some kind of Vaseline if he has it in his bedside dresser, but he doesn’t want to use those things at all. His mouth waters instead, mind instantly going for the kill.

“Can I…” Eddie husks, hesitant. He’s not sure if it’s too fast to ask for it, but fucking hell, he wants it so badly, he can’t believe he wants it as badly as he does in this moment.

Richie groans with his eyes closed, lost in the feeling of Eddie’s hands rubbing over him. “It’s so good, Eddie,” Richie tells him, even though Eddie didn’t ask.

But Eddie doesn’t want it to be _good_; he wants it to be mind-blowing.

“Fuck,” Eddie blurts, delirious from how much he wants it, “please let me lick you.”

Richie gasps, his dick jerking in Eddie’s hands, fucking up into Eddie’s fist. His eyes fly open, pupils shot wide, and he looks like he wasn’t expecting that, like he wants it just as much as Eddie does, maybe even more.

“It’ll be easier to touch you if you’re wetter. I just want to get it wet.” The words make him flush—he sounds like he belongs in a fucking pornography film—but it’s _true_, he needs to get Richie’s cock wet so that he can slip his hands over it quicker, so that he can make him come faster.

“Oh, _God_,” Richie says, not responding to the question. “Holy _fuck_, I’m dying, I’m—”

Eddie thinks that’s a yes; the cadence of his tone makes Eddie’s heart skip. “Stop me anytime,” he says, before bending down so that he’s closer to where he needs to be to make this work. His eyes stay on Richie’s face, and he looks on the verge of tears, like the idea of Eddie’s face being that close to his dick is going to send him to his personal nirvana.

He settles against Richie’s hipbone, resting his cheek against it as he watches how his fingers continue to skim over the length of Richie’s dick, on the veins along it. Richie’s dick is so fucking gorgeous. Richie is gorgeous everywhere, and it’s unfair, really, that this idiot nerd is so fucking good looking.

Holding it at the base, Eddie sticks his tongue out and licks a strip along the length of Richie’s cock, tasting him. Richie lets out a wet sob.

His skin is salt-slick and tastes the same as he does elsewhere, just earthier, more concentrated to a taste that’s specifically Richie. He tentatively licks over the head, basking in the moans Richie gives to him in reply. He pulls back, wanting to look at Richie’s face, and instantly misses the feeling of him in his mouth, hot and heavy.

“God,” Eddie murmurs, unthinkingly. “It’s so good.” He feels surprised by that—because, honestly, he didn’t expect to enjoy it. Whenever he’d thought about it theoretically, it seemed like a lot of work and not much personal gain, but the truth was that Eddie liked it so much more than he wanted to admit.

He licks at Richie’s shaft again, opening his mouth along it, and moans, shocked by how good it is. “I like it,” Eddie tells Richie, wanting him to know how good it is for him, too. “_Fuck_, Rich, I like it so much.”

Richie moans, and when Eddie looks up at him to see how he’s taking the news, he looks devastated in the best way. Thoroughly and absolutely _wrecked_.

Fuck the stupid hand job. Now that he’s gotten a taste, he wants more.

Richie reaches his hand down, fisting Eddie’s hair in his fingers, and he doesn’t push at Eddie’s head or do anything particularly aggressive with his grasp—he just wants to touch him, it seems. Eddie licks his lips, and with his eyes locked on Richie’s, gives his cock a filthy wet kiss at the tip.

Richie lets out a desperate cry. “_Please_, baby,” he begs, and Eddie’s heart flies into his throat, blood rushing under his skin from how much he wants to make Richie come.

His mouth wraps around the head, kitten-licking like a popsicle until Richie’s hands tighten in his hair, like he’s going to pull Eddie’s head off, then he doubles down, getting more of it in his mouth. It’s his first time doing this, so he’s a combination of slow and eager, trying his hardest to get him deeper in his mouth, as deep as he can get.

He tries a bit too hard, and gags. Richie hands go tight against Eddie’s scalp, like he enjoyed the sound Eddie just made. When Eddie gets his gag reflex under control, he presses Richie back into his mouth, sucking him down with all he has. “Fuck,” Richie moans from above, reduced to one single word, a cacophony of _fuckfuckfuck _emitting from his throat like a plea of devotion. Eddie wants to repay him with worship, curling his tongue against the underside of his dick.

If it’s possible, Richie is getting even harder, cock thickening inside his mouth. Eddie loves it, the way he can feel its every movement inside him. He reaches down to push his own pants down and touch himself, in need of some form of relief, and moans around Richie’s dick when he gets it.

Richie gasps above him, and Eddie shuts his eyes, losing himself to the sensations. He wonders if Richie can see what he’s doing, can see that he’s so desperate and turned on that he needs to touch himself while he’s sucking him off, and he feels a little humiliated by it, by the fact that he likes it _so __much _that he can’t even help himself.

“God, babe,” Richie whimpers, “c’mere, please kiss me again.”

Eddie pulls off. “But you didn’t come yet,” he protests, voice throaty from the way his mouth has been used.

Richie groans at the sound of Eddie’s voice, the way it’s been destroyed. “We’ll come together,” Richie says, pulling him closer.

And when Richie leans forward to kiss him, it’s the dirtiest kiss he’s given him yet. Richie licks over his lips, along his chin, then finally into his mouth, filthy and messy and desperate, like he wants to taste every part of Eddie that he’s allowed to. It’s like he’s soaking up everything Eddie can give him, not caring that Eddie’s mouth was just around his cock seconds ago—or, maybe, Richie kisses him this way because of it, to taste himself on Eddie’s lips. Eddie’s heart stutters, and he can’t help but crawl onto him and kiss him back, all teeth and tongue and lips.

Richie pulls Eddie up against his body until they’re lying side-by-side, both of their pants pushes around their knees or ankles. His hand is so fucking _large _that he wraps it easily around both of their cocks at the same time, jerking them in unison.

The sensation of Richie’s grasp on his dick, his dick rubbing against Eddie’s, makes Eddie feel like his brain is melting through his ears. His saliva is all over Eddie’s face and Eddie doesn’t give a single fuck, wants to meld their bodies together until he’s not sure where one of them ends and the other begins. The wet sound of Richie’s fist flying over both of their dicks makes Eddie shudder into Richie’s neck. He bites at Richie’s shoulder, sucking a bruise into his neck until he’s given a whimper in reward, and it’s only when Richie squeezes at their tips together does Eddie finally lose it, coming all over his fist, convulsing against him. Richie is close behind.

Richie touches them both through orgasm, the slick, wet sounds of his hand pulling them over the edge, and Eddie feels amazing, can practically feel it in his toes. He wraps his arm around Richie’s waist when Richie finally lets go, lying limp beside him, positive that he’ll never feel that good again.

“Eddie, my love,” Richie whispers, between harsh breaths. “I think I officially believe in God.”

Eddie snorts out a laugh, allowing himself a moment to observe Richie’s face. Eddie wonders if Richie really knows how sexy he is. He’s pretty sure the smugness is a farce, and in reality, Richie is a tad more insecure than he lets on.

“Do you know” —Eddie kisses him again, softer this time—“how fucking hot you are?”

Richie’s cheeks go red. He hums noncommittally, and Eddie cups his face, smoothing a thumb over Richie’s eyebrow.

“I mean it,” Eddie tells him, looking him dead in the eyes. “I meant all of it.” He noses at Richie’s cheek, then whispers in his ear: “I really do love you a lot, Richie.”

Richie makes this odd noise, like he can barely contain himself, and buries his face in Eddie’s neck, rolling over him. “Cute, _cute_,” Richie says there, kissing his shoulder. “Love you, Eds. So much.”

It’s pretty gross, lying there as their come dries, and it’s pretty sappy, the way they’re speaking to each other, but fuck. Eddie has finally allowed himself to be free.

He thinks they deserve a day to bask in that happiness.

++

When Eddie first realized he loved Richie, he thought Richie might be some kind of exception. That maybe, just maybe, he did still like girls, and Richie was the one boy that Eddie had the hots for.

It would make sense. Richie was the exception to all rules; why would this one be any different?

But the more Eddie kisses Richie, the harder he loves him, the deeper he falls—he can’t help but know that he’s fooling himself.

Richie is not an exception to Eddie’s sexuality. But he has a sneaking suspicion that Richie is the reason he even realized it in the first place.

++

Eddie wants to put his list to the test.

It’s a week later and they’re fooling around again when it happens. He pulls off Richie with a pop, and blurts out as he continues to jerk him off: “Come in my mouth.”

Richie gasps, thigh flexing beneath Eddie’s left palm. “_What_? Eddie, no. I’m not doing that.”

Eddie feels oddly outraged, pausing the movement of his hands. “And why not?”

“Because it’s gross,” Richie says around a groan.

Eddie feels thrown, too surprised by the comment to think of a reply.

It would make some sort of sense if it had come from Eddie, but coming from _Richie_, it’s simply confusing. Richie who eats food off the floor sometimes, who changes his bed sheets twice a year—which has changed to much more often, thank God, now that Eddie has become a more consistent fixture in Richie’s bedroom. Richie, who literally has to make an active effort to become more hygienic in order to appease Eddie, thinks that coming in Eddie’s mouth is ‘gross’.

Eddie calls bullshit.

He stays off of Richie’s dick, as he requested, and jerks him off the rest of the way in record time, but his mind is stuck in contemplation. While it’s true that neither him nor Richie have tried to do that at the end of a blowjob yet, he didn’t believe it to be a big deal. It’s a pretty common thing—at least that’s what he’s seen, from the research he’s done. And, in Eddie’s opinion, it isn’t that much grosser than having Richie’s literal dick in his mouth in the first place.

Richie has never been the type of person to get hung up on something being gross. Eddie remembers the way Richie kissed him after the first time he blew him; he did not give a single shit about the sanity of sharing fluids.

He ends up reaching a natural conclusion: he’s positive that Richie thinks it’s too gross for _Eddie_, not that he, personally, finds it disgusting.

The realization that this is the issue makes Eddie seethe a little.

It isn’t confirmed, so he keeps touching Richie through the duration of his orgasm, speaks to him in his usual tone of voice, requests of him, “Come for me, baby,” like he normally would. Richie always listens, every time. He’s very good at listening during sex.

As the come cools against Richie’s stomach, Eddie thinks to himself, _Maybe that would’ve been pretty gross in my mouth_.

Regardless, it doesn’t make him feel better about what happened. He wanted to decide that for himself, not for Richie to shut him down because he didn’t think he can take it.

Richie catches his breath next to him, and Eddie makes himself comfortable, preparing himself to confront the issue head-on. “You next, cutie?” Richie asks, breathless.

Eddie feels tense all over. “No,” he says sulkily. “I’m not hard anymore.” Even though he kind of is—but only halfway, and on the verge of losing it completely.

“Huh?” Richie says, sensing something is off. Eddie hugs his knees, watching Richie with critical eyes. He’s sure that Richie can read the look on his face; he’s on the path to recognizing something is wrong. “What is it?”

“Why did you do that?” Eddie asks, accusingly.

Richie can tell what he’s talking about, he knows he can, but he refuses to acknowledge it, choosing to play stupid. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what.”

“_Eddie_,” Richie whines, reaching out to touch Eddie’s knee in a sign of comfort. Eddie knocks his hand away before he can, anticipating his moves, and Richie sits up straighter when he realizes that he’s sincerely annoyed. His eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. “Why are you mad at me? I was doing you a favour.”

“That’s why I’m pissed,” Eddie says, calm. “I would’ve liked to decide that for myself.”

“I’d rather you not deal with it at all.”

“That’s my choice, though,” Eddie explains, fraying at the edges. “If you really think it’s weird, then I’d be okay with not doing it. But I know you, Rich. _I know you_. I don’t believe that _you _think it’s weird.”

Richie appears confused by this analysis.

“You think I’ll think it’s gross. That’s why you said it, right? Because you thought _I’d _find it gross—not because you do.”

Richie shrugs. “I guess. Isn’t it the same thing?”

“No, it’s not!” Eddie finally bursts. “And I should be allowed to determine that for myself, shouldn’t I? I don’t need you deciding it for me.”

“I—I wasn’t trying to do that, Eddie,” Richie says, catching onto the real problem, dread creeping into his tone.

It’s bullshit—that’s what it is. “I’ve lived my entire fucking life with my mother deciding what I can and cannot handle, what’s ‘too much’ for me, what I’m too fragile to deal with. I’m fucking sick of it.”

Richie’s shoulders lower, defenses going down. “Eds—” he tries, more gentle this time.

“I’m not this delicate thing that you need to protect from the scary things in the world,” he steamrolls. “I’m beginning to realize that I’m not delicate at all. You’ve never treated me like I am before—it’s one of the reasons that I like you, Richie. So please don’t start doing it, too. I don’t think I could handle it if you did it, too.”

Richie is picking at Eddie’s bedspread when he looks at him, face downcast and solemn.

“I’m done, now,” Eddie announces, unceremoniously. “Sorry for the rant.”

Richie shakes his head. “No. I’m sorry, Eddie. I didn’t mean to do that to you. I don’t want to treat you like your mom does. I didn’t even realize I was doing that, so I’m _really _sorry.”

He sounds really disappointed, so Eddie eases up on him. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

“I still did it, though,” Richie says, looking upset with himself.

“Did you really think a bit of come would freak me out?” Eddie jokes, trying to add some levity to the mood. Richie raises his head to look at Eddie’s face, and Eddie tries to smile at him so that he knows he isn’t angry. “Richie, I once saw you eating ketchup from the bottle. One time you made pasta and didn’t cook it all the way, but you ate it anyway because you were too lazy.”

“_Hey_—”

Eddie continues like he didn’t hear him, ignoring the affronted look on his face. “I’d be surprised if your body really was composed of sixty percent water, since I’ve barely seen you drink it. The last time I can recall seeing it happen, it was _bong water_, and it was on a dare!”

Richie laughs loudly at that one, and the tense mood between them dissipates. “I mostly did that to see the look on your face.”

Eddie wants to gag at the memory. “Well you got it, because it was truly _disgusting_—”

Richie’s eyes crinkle. “If I wanted my health habits criticized, I’d have gotten my dick sucked by your mom instead.”

“Not the time, dickhead.”

“Okay, okay,” Richie relents.

“C’mere,” Eddie murmurs, tugging Richie to curl up against him.

Richie lays against his chest, his ear pressed right up where Eddie’s heartbeat is pounding. He turns his head, then says, muffled against Eddie’s shirt: “I didn’t mean for it to become a thing. You’ve never been someone who needs protection, to me. You’re the strongest fucker I know,” Richie says, quietly. Eddie can hear the sound of the crickets outside his window, listens to Richie’s breathing as he talks. “I just never want to make you do something you don’t want to do.”

And, suddenly, it becomes clear to Eddie what this is really about.

Eddie pulls Richie’s head back by the hair on his head, forcing him to look him in the eyes. “You really think you can make me do something I don’t like?” 

Richie swallows. “I mean, in theory—”

“Real bold of you,” Eddie teases, “thinking that you have the power here.”

Richie’s eyes grow darker, and his eyelashes flutter against his skin. But Eddie loosens his grip on Richie’s curls, knowing this isn’t the right moment, and allows him to settle against his chest again.

“I’m just in my head,” Richie admits, when they’re quiet for a little longer. “I think ever since we kissed, I’ve just been scared that I’ve kind of… pushed this entire relationship on you. And that I’m going to force you into doing something you don’t like.”

This entire time, Richie has been afraid that if he missteps, Eddie will run. He’s afraid if he wants Eddie too much, he’ll end up with nothing.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks, petting Richie with a soothing motion.

“Hm,” Richie replies, still looking up at him.

He hesitates, thinks about his wording, and then decides to stop caring about the repercussions. He’s just going to go for it. “I’m gay.”

Silence.

Richie blinks up at Eddie, like he didn’t expect that to be the announcement.

Eddie goes on. “At this point it’s kind of obvious, but I thought I’d let you know. Just so you’re aware. This isn’t—us, this relationship—it isn’t just a thing I’m trying out. Like, I’m in love with you, Richie. But it’s more than that.”

Richie brings a hand up to thumb at Eddie’s lips.

“Say something,” Eddie pleads, after his anxiety spikes.

Two beats, and then: “I’m glad you figured it out.”

“Did you know?” Eddie wonders. He’s not sure which he prefers as a reply—would he rather Richie have always known, or to be surprised? Neither seems like an option that will placate him.

“I kind of figured?” The corner of Richie’s mouth twitches into a small smile. “With the dick sucking and all.”

This makes Eddie breathe out a giggle, a feeling of immense relief consuming him. It’s fair; there aren’t many things gayer than sucking cock. “I don’t like girls, either.”

“Oh,” Richie replies, like this has changed nothing. “Well, that’s—great?”

“Great?” Eddie echoes, before huffing a laugh. “I’d hope so. Considering that we’re _dating_.”

“Fuck, babe, give me a break,” Richie says, exasperated. He pinches Eddie’s hip. “You know I’m emotionally constipated. I’m a natural born comedian! I deflect. I don’t do well with feelings—unless it’s _feeling _you up.”

Eddie chokes on a laugh. “That’s not funny.”

“You laughed.”

“I did not fucking laugh. You’re terrible.”

“That’s not what you were saying _last ni_—”

Eddie smothers him with a pillow, before Richie pushes him away with a laugh. “Can you have a serious conversation?”

“I don’t know, let’s test it out,” Richie replies. “Thoughts on Stonewall?”

“_What_—”

“Such a revolutionary time,” Richie continues, casually. “I’m glad there are people out there fighting for me to have the right to suck your brains out through your dick.”

“For Christ’s sake, sweetheart, shut _up_.” He pulls him back, letting Richie rest his head on Eddie’s chest.

They’re quiet again, Richie actually listening to him for once. It’s a comfortable silence this time, filled with their breathing, their heartbeats, and the movement of Eddie’s hands through Richie’s hair, Richie’s thumb smoothing over Eddie’s belly.

“My point is that I love you,” Eddie tells Richie. “I want everything with you. _Everything_. You might be gross”—Eddie kisses Richie’s nose, so that he knows he’s kidding—“but I don’t find anything we do together gross. Please know that going forward.”

He says it like he’s relaying meeting minutes, clinically, and Eddie’s pretty sure it’s that which brings a smile to Richie’s face.

“Okay,” Richie whispers, before reaching up to kiss Eddie, slow and deep, with more tongue than is necessary. Eddie sucks on his tongue in retaliation, knowing exactly what Richie is doing, and when he pulls away, Richie looks at him with an unparalleled intensity. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

Eddie smiles. He hopes that he does.

//


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have been updated, so you’ve been warned! As always, all mistakes are my own.

**PART III**   
  


“Kaspbrak,” he hears Richie whisper into his ear. Eddie fails to suppress a full-bodied shiver.

After checking that their friends are distracted by the movie, he replies. “Hm?”

“We require your presence Sunday evening at approximately nineteen hundred hours,” Richie says lowly, in his Secret Agent voice. It’s a personal favourite of Eddie’s so he can’t help the smile that immediately consumes his face. “Please ensure that no one is following when you arrive. You are a target, and we cannot blow our cover.”

He plays along; it’s more fun that way. “What’s the mission, Tozier?”

“That’s classified information, agent. We can’t tell you until we enter private headquarters, but do know that the case is of high priority status.” His eyes crinkle, bright and playful, and Eddie feels his heart squeeze at the childlike joy. He never wants Richie to change.

“Well, sir—”

“What are you two whispering about?” Stan hisses at them from his place on the carpet. Eddie and Richie are currently occupying the loveseat together, while their friends lounge in the spots they claimed around Bill’s basement.

(“A loveseat for two lovers!” Richie had exclaimed, delighted, as he pulled Eddie onto his lap.

Eddie kicked Richie’s calf without force. “Richie, for fuck’s sake,” he complained, doing nothing to halt Richie’s attempts at cuddling him.

The Losers had observed their antics with varying degrees of annoyance and amusement, lost to the truth behind Richie’s statement.)

“Richie’s just being Richie,” Eddie replies, which is explanation enough. Stan eyes them with a sliver of distrust, but returns to the screen.

“Having a lover’s spat?” Bev quips from where she’s lying on the couch, wiggling her eyebrows at them. Eddie tenses.

Richie slings his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, grinning at Bev, before saying much too loudly: “As if! Eddie can’t resist my charms.” The other Losers hush him, so he continues by whispering out of the corner of his mouth. “He’s been asking to get a piece of this _all_ night. Trying to taint my innocence.”

Eddie glares at Richie for the bold-faced lie, pinching his arm in retaliation.

“Ow, Eds!” Richie yelps, rubbing at the sore spot.

Bev chuckles while the others choose to ignore them, transfixed on the copy of _Silence of the Lambs_. “You can’t say that was uncalled for,” she comments, before returning to the movie.

He waits until everyone is occupied before muttering to Richie in a very quiet voice: “Can you not?”

Richie pulls him closer, unbothered. “’S’okay, sugar, they don’t know a thing,” he whispers, lips brushing against Eddie’s ear. He melts back into his embrace, choosing to put it out of his mind. After all, their friends don’t tend to find them being tactile out of character—he and Richie have always been like this with each other. The only difference is that as they’ve grown older, the touches have gotten less antagonistic and more out of genuine need to be near each other.

It’s only when he’s positive that the others has fallen asleep after the movie and his eyes are heavy with sleep that he remembers what Richie had asked earlier. “Mm, Rich?”

“Yeah, Eddie?” he answers, much more awake.

Eddie turns into Richie’s neck. “What’s the Sunday thing?”

“Ummm,” Richie says, dragging it out as if he’s trying to find the answer hidden within the sound. He pitches his voice lower so that Eddie is the only one that could possibly hear when he replies, “Well, um, it’s a bit of a—it’s kind of—a sex thing, I guess.”

Eddie tries to blink himself back to consciousness. “Whadd’ya mean?”

“I have… an idea,” Richie says, kind of hesitant. “Something I want to try.”

“That’s great, Rich,” Eddie tries to say, mumbling it into Richie’s shoulders. “I’m happy.”

“I’m happy, too, sweet cakes,” Richie says, voice muffled by Eddie’s hair. “Let’s get you in your sleeping bag, yeah?”

“Mm,” Eddie says, before succumbing to darkness, the ghost of Richie’s fond laugh echoing in his head as he falls asleep.

++

In the morning the sunshine filters through Bill’s basement windows and he looks around the room to see his best friends scattered about, lost in their dreams. To his left, he sees Richie, forever within arm’s reach. And he remembers what Richie said to him the night before as he was falling into slumber.

It’s a big step, is the thing.

Richie having an idea—a sex idea—is fairly monumental for them. For a multitude of reasons, but specifically because Eddie had been the one to guide them through the beginning stages of their physical relationship. And Eddie doesn’t mind that one bit—he loves taking the lead, and he’s pretty sure that Richie likes when Eddie takes the lead too. But Richie hasn’t shared any of the thoughts he’s kept buried inside him, the private desires he’s repressed because he’d become too scared of them, too scared to want them. He tends to go along with whatever Eddie suggests, and he’s typically just overjoyed by the very fact that Eddie wants to do things with him.

And despite Eddie being a bit of a control freak, he wants to know what makes Richie tick. He likes learning it through their actions, and inferring it from Richie’s_ re_actions. His favourite, though, is discovering what Richie likes from the source, directly spoken to him.

The past three months have been spent touching each other, using their mouths, but they haven’t gone beyond it. For one, it’s been much too thrilling to care about going further. Eddie had been attempting to get himself to suggest using their fingers for _other_ reasons, but he hadn’t yet figured out how to get the words through Richie’s head without having it explode.

Still, though—_still_. The fact that Richie brought it up first is a massive development, simply because in turn, it means that he was comfortable enough to do it. Comfortable enough with himself, and comfortable enough with Eddie.

That, more than anything, makes Eddie’s heart go so warm that he’s afraid he’ll get heartburn.

++

“Hear ye, hear ye,” Richie calls out, in a solemn voice. He stands before his bed, with Eddie leaning against the headboard, legs criss-crossed. “This court is now in session.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Hi,” is all he replies, deadpan.

Richie grins. “I’m sure why you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”

“Well, you basically told me—”

“Silence!” Richie barks, and Eddie huffs from his place on the bed. “Today, we are here to discuss something that requires our _utmost_ attention.”

Eddie shakes his head. “And what is that?”

“Our intimate activities,” Richie states, very serious.

Eddie squints, hoping his expression says enough.

“I should’ve drawn up diagrams for this,” Richie says, almost to himself, before continuing. “As we’re both aware, we haven’t gone further than the good old”—he bulges his tongue crassly against the inside of his mouth, imitating a blow job—“suck and blow. I’d like to grant you access to more, if ya’ know what I mean.”

Eddie stares at him. He can’t choose between amusement and curiosity, but he lands on endeared, instead. For a second, he wonders if it’s just because he knows him so well, but Richie sounds incredibly rehearsed, as if he’s been practicing this very conversation alone in his bedroom before propositioning Eddie in person. “Access to _what_, exactly?”

Richie grins, bright and unfazed. “Access to my asshole.”

Eddie is briefly overcome with an intense need—a phantom feeling of his fingers inside a tight, hot space—before realizing just how fucking ridiculous this situation is.

To the average ear, it might seem like a bit—but Eddie can see it for what it really is: a genuine suggestion masquerading as a joke. Eddie, past his initial lust, laughs so hard he falls off the bed.

He can hear the indignation in Richie’s voice when he yells, “This is a serious matter, young lad! Get back up here!”

“Richie, you are the weirdest person I’ve ever met,” Eddie says, when he’s caught his breath and climbed back on the bed. “Of course the one time you ask for something, you do a fucking bit.”

Richie drops the act, sits on the foot of the bed, and looks at Eddie with a more characteristic amount of nerves. “So?”

Eddie, while he does enjoy making him squirm, loves him too much to keep him that nerve-wracked. “You’re talking about... sex, right?”

Richie shrugs, cheekbones flushed. “Can we, uh—do you—well, I was thinking that maybe…”

Eddie extends his arm, pulling Richie closer. He intertwines their hands together, and tries to look at him with all of the patience he can muster. He wants to show him that he’s willing to wait, for however long it takes.

Richie seems to get it, and gives him a smile in thanks. “Maybe we can—like, with your fingers first?”

Eddie’s breath catches in his throat. Goosebumps rise over his arms, and _fuck_, he can feel himself go halfway hard just thinking about it. He knows that _he_ likes it, the feeling of his fingers inside himself; it sets him off every single time. The thought of him making Richie feel the same makes his mouth go dry.

“Have you, y’know”—Eddie clears his throat, attempting to get himself under control—“done that before?”

Richie runs his hand through his hair, a nervous tick. “Um, not with someone else.”

And Eddie knows—he _knows_ that he’s done it to himself too, but the thought of Richie alone in his bedroom, on this very bed, pushing his long, thick fingers into himself is rendering him useless, just the idea of it. “You mean—?” he says, roughly.

Richie nods quickly, before clarifying, “By myself.”

“Fuck,” Eddie breathes out, the word leaving him before he even thinks it. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_, he’s going to die, he’s going to fucking _die_.

Richie’s eyes are flickering over his face, like he’s trying to determine whether Eddie is on board or not. “Or we can—if you want it the other way, instead—”

“No!” Eddie blurts, before feeling his face go warm. “I mean—_yes_, of course, I definitely want that. Trust me. But, fuck, Richie, I want to… do that to you, first.” He swallows thickly. As an afterthought, he says, “Please.”

He can tell it’s the right thing to say, because Richie’s shoulders relax and his eyes crinkle. “Yeah?”

(The privilege that has been given to him is that, now, the words that come from his mouth have a direct line to Richie’s dick. In the months they’ve been together, he’s learned one very important piece of information: how much Eddie wants it is directly proportional to how little Richie will freak out about it happening. When Eddie voices his want, Richie feels incredibly calm about it happening. It’s almost as if Richie’s brain associates Eddie’s desires with his own.

He isn’t entirely sure how he feels about this link, as of yet, but when he contemplates it, he wonders if it’s always been this way between them.)

Eddie nods, eager, almost vibrating from how much he wants it, and then says: “Let’s do it now.”

Richie’s eyes go wide, saying, “_Now_—?” before Eddie jumps forward to kiss him, unloading all his nervous and excited energy into the motion. Richie gives a funny sound before getting with the program, kissing him back with his entire body.

He pulls back. “Yes, now.” Then, pulls at Richie’s hoodie with urgency he had not felt until this very instant. “C’mon, take off your clothes for me,” he murmurs, his hands imprinting on each inch of Richie’s skin that is revealed.

“You too,” Richie says, once his shirt is off. Eddie complies, and they both strip down, quick and efficient, before they’re just in their underwear. Eddie presses the heel of his hand against Richie’s clothed cock, feeling the shape of it. He likes doing this, touching him a little before getting him completely naked, feeling the promise of more to come. He lets one hand rub at Richie through the fabric, hardening as another hand wanders up the length of Richie’s torso. He hisses when Eddie scrapes a nail against his nipple, and moans when he gets the nub between his fingers. His dick jumps up against Eddie’s hand.

Between hot kisses against Richie’s lips, he asks: “How d’you—mm, how should we do this? What do you want?”

Richie, looking thoroughly kissed with dark eyes, says, “I think, maybe… on my back?”

Eddie smiles. “Yeah, that’s good,” he breathes, before kissing the corner of his mouth. “That way I can watch you.”

“You love seeing me all brain-dead,” Richie murmurs, and Eddie goes red, caught. “How ‘bout I play real-dead this time, Eds? Maybe you’re a necrophiliac, too.”

“If that’s what it takes to finally shut you up,” Eddie replies, all snark.

Richie reaches up to kiss him again, giving an unbothered laugh. “It’s okay,” he whispers, his smile lingering on Eddie’s lips. “I like watching you, too.”

“Creep.” He licks into Richie’s mouth, kissing him slow and hard. “A necrophiliac and a Peeping Tom. Match made in hell.”

“Mmm,” Richie mumbles, distracted, before letting out a moan when Eddie nips at his lower lip. “I have lube in my glasses case. Backpack.”

Eddie breaks away. “Where—?”

“I stole it,” Richie blurts, and Eddie’s eyes bulge.

“You _stole_ a bottle of lube?”

“I didn’t want to explain why I was buying it!” Richie cries out defensively.

Eddie reflects on how cagey Richie gets about this kind of stuff. “Okay, but why is it in there?” There, meaning his glasses case, which he carries every day to school.

Richie grins. “I never open it because I don’t take these puppies off! I take the bag with me when I go to your house, and”—he shrugs, going a lovely shade of pink—“I just wanted to be prepared.”

The thought that Richie has been thinking about this, preparing for it, makes his insides go liquid. Eddie makes a low sound, and runs his nose along the length of Richie’s throat before biting the crook of his neck. “Have you wanted this for a while?”

“Yeah,” Richie breathes, instantaneously. Eddie had expected a joke, or at least for him to play it off, but the immediate admittance does much more for him.

“Yeah?” Eddie murmurs, sucking on Richie’s neck, making him up. “You think about it a lot? Want it that bad?”

Richie whimpers, his hips bucking up against Eddie’s leg. “_God_, so much, please.”

Eddie shivers. He gets like this so easily around Richie—heady with the knowledge that he has this unspeakable power over him, and Richie has it on him in return. “Okay. Okay, tell me what you want,” he says throatily, snaking a hand down to rub at Richie’s dick again, leisurely. He wants to hear Richie say it in a voice that’s so turned on that it’ll send him reeling.

“_Eddie_,” Richie whines, like he’s too embarrassed to say it out loud, but still wants it so badly that he’s on the verge of begging.

He presses his thumb against where he can feel the tip of his cock through his boxer briefs. He slips his hand inside, relishing in Richie’s shudder when he jerks his cock once. “Please, Rich?” he says in a honeyed tone, sucking another bruise into Richie’s shoulder. “I’ll give you what you want, if you just tell me.”

“Fuck,” Richie moans, bucking up into his fist. “Okay. I want—your fingers. Inside me. Please.”

Eddie groans. “How many?” he asks out of greed, as he rubs his thumb along his shaft, as if he’s got all the time in the world.

“Two, three, all of them, _fuck_. You can put—_oh_—your entire—”

Eddie kisses him hard, cutting him off, because if Richie had finished his sentence, even if it was a joke, Eddie would have regressed to his thirteen-year-old self and shot off in his boxers. “You’re so _fucking_ hot,” Eddie groans into Richie’s mouth, squeezing him firmly before removing his hand. “Okay, okay, I’m going to—let me get the lube.”

His heart races as he scrambles through Richie’s bag before pulling out the bottle of lubricant. He gives it a quick once-over, and it’s most definitely stolen from their local pharmacy; he can recall looking at this very bottle, himself, a few weeks ago.

Richie gets up on his elbows, watching him with heat in his eyes, and Eddie can’t help but relax. It never fails to make him feel honoured that Richie wants him back, loves him back, the same way in which Eddie does.

He moves toward the bed, and kisses Richie once, softly. “I love you,” he says. The moment is still, the calm before the wreckage, and while he knows that he’s going to love what he and Richie do together, he feels more touched that Richie is allowing him to do it in the first place.

“Sap,” Richie teases, as if he isn’t the biggest sap between the two of them. Eddie lets him have it, laughing, and tells Richie to take off his underwear while he does the same himself. And then they’re both bare, blood sizzling in anticipation.

Eddie gets on the bed and spreads Richie’s legs apart, sitting between them and pushing one leg to the side. He fixes Richie into position, on the bed with a pillow under him for elevation, his command of Richie’s body wholly welcome. Richie enjoys being manhandled a little—or, maybe he just enjoys the look on Eddie’s face when he does it, the part of Eddie that gets a thrill out of having control, being allowed this level of control.

With Richie spread out like this, exposed, Eddie kisses his way along his thighs. Licks, sucks, and bites his way along them until Richie is at full-mast again, his cock laying heavy and twitching against the soft of his belly. Richie isn’t being loud just yet, only letting out stuttering breaths, but Eddie knows that when he’s done with him he’ll be an incoherent mess.

“Don’t touch yourself,” he warns, voice low. “Only I can touch you tonight.”

Richie gives a noise—half-protest, half-aroused. Eddie knows he’ll listen, though, that he’ll like it more if it’s only Eddie that gets to touch him when he’s about to lose his mind altogether.

Eddies hands go to the inside of Richie’s thighs, spreading him open until he could see the hole of him perfectly. He bites his lip, letting his fingers run along the skin, dry, and he hears Richie suck in a deep breath. With his other hand, he opens the cap of the bottle.

“You’re okay, right?” Eddie asks, to be sure, to distract from his own worries. “I won’t be upset if you don’t want to. Just tell me—”

“I want this,” Richie says, quiet and sure. His eyes are honest when Eddie looks at them, and it eases his nerves tenfold.

Eddie coats his fingers with the lube, warming it between his fingers before dipping down to touch Richie again, in the same place. He presses a single finger inside, feeling the clench of Richie’s ass around his finger.

Richie lets out a shuddering sigh. Using more lube, he presses inside again, as deep as he possibly can, goes through the motion of giving and removing, until he can feel Richie physically relax around him, ready for more.

It’s so fucking quiet in the room, the only sound being the slick movement of Eddie’s finger.

When he presses the second finger in, it’s a revelation.

Fingering him with one finger had been methodical, almost clinical, but when he fucks two fingers inside of Richie, he’s rewarded with a deep, guttural moan.

“Is it good?” Eddie whispers, not wanting to disturb the moment.

Richie’s entire body jerks, and all he replies is a single word: “More.”

_He likes it_, Eddie thinks, delirious. He presses his fingers in deeper, harder, quicker, crooks them until he tilts to the side and grazes the shape of Richie’s prostate.

“_Fuck_!” Richie cries, hips rolling to meet the thrust of Eddie’s fingers. Eddie touches him there again, firmer, and Richie gives a dry sob in response. Eddie doesn’t think he even realizes half the shit that comes out of his mouth when he’s turned on. Richie tends to babble during sex, speaking solely in half sentences and full moans.

“You sound so good,” he murmurs, because he can, thrusting the digits faster.

“Eddie,” Richie mumbles, almost dreamy, before groaning when Eddie crooks his finger against his prostate again. “Eds, _oh_, there—”

“Shh,” he says, soothingly, scissoring his fingers to stretch him a little more. He pushes a third finger inside—a tight fit, but he can tell that Richie loves it from the way his back arches against the bed. He licks his lips at the sight, breath quickening with arousal.

“Eddie, _Eddie_,” Richie groans, over and over, like it’s the only thing he can remember.

“Jesus,” Eddie whispers as he pushes his fingers in and out, ensuring he keeps a steady and building rhythm. “You’re so—_fuck_, so hot and tight inside.”

Just looking at Richie, at the way he’s stretched out around Eddie’s fingers, how he clenches when Eddie pulls away is making him fucking lose his shit.

Richie stifles a moan into the bed, and Eddie hates it. “No, no, moan for me,” he says breathlessly, and Richie does, because he’s the best and he always, always listens to Eddie when they’re having sex, eager to please. He tilts his head to the side and louds for him, loud and unabashed, the perfect listener.

“I love that you’re letting me do this to you,” Eddie murmurs, softly. He stares at Richie’s face, buzzed on the sight of his blatant pleasure. “I love it so much. You feel amazing. You like it, right, Rich?”

“Eddie, please,” Richie moans, and Eddie presses against Richie’s prostate again, making sure he gets it every time now, with every fuck of his fingers. “Oh, _fuck_, fuck, I need to—fuck, _Eds_—”

“I want to ruin you,” Eddie says, voice dark. He didn’t expect himself to be one to talk during sex, but he should’ve known—he has to keep up with his Trashmouth, of course he’d be a talker. His hand goes to his own cock, squeezing once, and he realizes how hard he’s been this entire time. It hasn’t even been on his mind until now—he’s been too distracted by the way Richie looks. “I want to wreck you so fucking _bad_ that all that’s left of you are your dumb, hot noises.”

“Touch me, baby, _please_, I can’t—”

Eddie’s hand flies off his own dick, wet with pre-come, and he strokes Richie, fucking into him deeper. He looks away from Richie’s face and down at where his fingers are—there, _inside him_, inside of Richie’s hole, hot and wet around him, stretched to accommodate Eddie’s fingers, taking it over and over, harder, faster, until—

Richie comes, a broken cry, eyes wet and ass clenching.

“Fuck,” Eddie says, not even thinking, drunk on the sight of him. His spare hand goes to his cock, watching Richie’s cock spurting all over himself, white ropes coating his torso.

He takes his fingers out of him, ignoring Richie’s noise of protest, to grasp tight at his hip for purchase. He can see Richie coming off the high of his orgasm, panting heavily into the air, but he’s still spread lewdly, letting Eddie see everything. The way his hole gapes from a lack of fingers, open from Eddie fucking into it. _Fuck_, Eddie wants to—he wants to—he can’t even think it. He wants it so badly.

He pulls at his own cock, fucking into his fist, jerking himself methodically, manically, mercilessly, until he comes all over his stomach with a gut-wrenching noise.

“Holy shit,” Richie breathes, observing Eddie coming unravelled.

“I’m gonna—I want—_Richie_,” Eddie moans, still touching himself, toes curling in oversensitivity, “_please_, please let me, sweetheart—”

“Anything,” Richie replies, breathless, but he can’t possibly know what Eddie wants.

The Eddie that is buried under the desire for cleanliness and organization craves this type of disorder and destruction.

He swipes his hand through the mess he’s made, the come splattered over him, wet and disgusting, and doesn’t think twice when he forces two of his fingers back inside of Richie’s ass, fucking his come into him.

“Holy fucking _shit_,” Richie moans, loud, like his brain is liquefying inside his head and about to melt out his nose. Richie cocks twitches pathetically against his hip, half-hard from the feeling of Eddie inside him again. “That’s—_Eddie_. Holy _shit_.”

“I know, _I know_,” Eddie sobs, focusing on how wet Richie is, now that Eddie has pushed his come into him. He lets his fingers thrust shallowly, before shuddering in lust at the obscene sound. It’s gross, it’s too much, and everything he’s ever wanted.

After a few beats, he pulls his fingers out, staring at his hand in shock. He can’t believe what he’s just done.

“Oh, my God,” Richie whispers, reverent, to the ceiling. His thighs are trembling, and so are Eddie’s hands. He can’t _believe_—

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, immediately, once he’s gotten a handle on himself again. He’s breathing so hard now, and he feels like Richie had before, almost in state of post-sex panic. “I don’t know why I—”

“Are you joking?” Richie replies weakly, still staring at the ceiling, flabbergasted. “That was so fucking_ hot_.”

“It—really?” Eddie replies, voice high. His pulse calms once he realizes he hasn’t fucked everything up by being too much. “I—well, good.”

“Holy _shit_,” Richie repeats, and then looks at Eddie, his eyes wide. Eddie meets his eyes, both of their surprise reflected in each other, and cracks a smile. Richie laughs at the look on his face, and wraps a hand around Eddie’s wrist, pulling. “Kiss me, you filthy boy.”

He does.

They’re covered in their own spunk, sweaty and unruly, but God, Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy before in his life. Richie accepts him in all ways, even though he likes weird, gross things during sex. Richie accepts all of it, wholeheartedly.

He isn’t sure what he did to deserve this.

++

It turns out sex is a funny thing.

Eddie is seventeen years old, and he’s lived most of his childhood in fear, and the rest attempting to unlearn it. When he starts to have it, he can’t help but wonder if sex and fear are intrinsically linked, interweaved within each other, whether he likes the things he does because he had once been scared of them, if he likes it because they terrify him. Maybe he feels strong, facing the things that were once scary head-on, using them for his own gain, his own pleasure, until they aren’t things to be horrified by any longer, they’re just—things he likes, what he craves. It makes him feel good.

Then, after thinking about it for far too long, he wonders: is it really a fear, the thing that he has inside of him, his aversion to germs and dirt and disease? Is it fear or is it something else, something that’s been instilled in him over time that he never had control over, something that was forced upon him, waiting for him to reclaim when the time was right? He doesn’t know.

Here’s what he does know: he has control over _this_, over sex, over how it makes him feel—and right now, he feels unstoppable.

++

So, the day comes. It’s the day they write about in Richie’s mother’s romance novels, where everything changes and they both take the final plunge toward maturity.

It sounds so fucking dramatic when he puts it like that. Goddamn it, Richie is totally rubbing off on him (_and no, not in that way, Richie, get out of my fucking head!_).

Here’s how Eddie would actually put it, if he were the one writing these scripts:

He’s going to fuck Richie’s brains out.

“Enough talking,” Richie murmurs, tangling their naked bodies together. They’re both already hard, shaking, and ready to go. “Come give Papa some sugar.”

“I won’t be giving you _anything _if you don’t shut the fuck up,” Eddie replies, zero heat whatsoever, because he’s so shockingly happy. He’s going to have sex with Richie, his best friend, the person he loves. Excuse him for getting caught up in the moment.

Richie laughs, a breathy moan emitting from his mouth when their dicks graze each other. “You won’t be giving me anything but that long, hard _di_—”

“Beep_ beep, _Richie!” Eddie shrieks, before burying his head in Richie’s neck to hide a laugh.

Richie’s hand goes to Eddie’s hair, pulling on it until their lips touch, over and over until they’re making out, melting, moulding against each other again.

It takes a few minutes until they’re grinding with more purpose, and it becomes clear that Richie wants to get fucked. Eddie had fingered him for long before they took a break to kiss again, did it until his throat was raw from crying out, finally begging for Eddie’s cock. _Please, fuck, I need it_, Richie’s voice echoes in his head, the memory making Eddie gasp again.

“Want you so much,” Richie whispers, softly, against Eddie’s cheek. His heart stutters in his chest.

“I want you always, Richie,” Eddie whispers back, and the smile he gets in return is entirely worth his vulnerability. He’d bare his heart for the world to see as long as it made him smile like that, rip it out of his chest and place it in Richie’s hands. That’s the trust he bestows upon him every time he shares his soul.

They don’t discuss it when they get into position; it’s missionary, and both of them are thoroughly prepared to have a religious experience—although, he’s not quite sure if Jesus would be cool with them associating gay sex with an act traditionally dedicated to God, but fuck it, if Eddie’s going to hell then he’s definitely going to do it having Richie stretched out around his cock.

He coats himself with too much lube. He supposes there can never be too much lube, if he thinks about it, but he wants to be careful with Richie and the trust he’s placed in Eddie to do this right.

Richie watches as he does it, eyes molten and legs spread open, looking like an obscene dream from Eddie’s imagination. He settles between them once he’s finished, kissing Richie deeply as he reaches down to press his fingers back inside, checking that he’s still loose enough to fit inside.

“You’re sure?” Eddie double-checks, as gently as he can.

Richie gives him a happy sigh, squirming around his fingers. “Fuck me with that big dick,” he half-jokes, crass as ever.

Eddie laughs, kissing his cheek for that. He removes his hand, wipes it on the bed, and cups Richie’s face with it. “You know if we do this, we can never go back?” Eddie says, quiet, like it’s an unspoken secret simmering between them.

“Then do it,” Richie whispers, so sure of his own words, “because I don’t want to go back ever again.”

His heart skips in his chest. He locks eyes with him. He lines up, and pushes the tip of himself inside, with a firm, slow thrust, refusing to look away. He wants to memorize the way Richie looks here, beneath him, and never forget it.

Richie’s mouth cracks open when he presses in deeper, and so does Eddie’s heart.

He’s shaking. Both of them are, bodies trembling the more Eddie eases his cock inside, the deeper he gets, the further he reaches. Eddie murmurs to him, “I love how much you want me.” _Like you’d die if I touch you and you’ll die if I don’t_, he finishes in his head.

Richie shivers, takes a gasping breath, and Eddie bottoms out.

He stays in place for a few beats, attempting to hold onto the remnants of his strength and sanity, focusing his mind instead on the unruly hair atop of Richie’s head. He absolutely refuses to come after thirty seconds of being inside of him. First of all, Richie would never let him live it down, and second, he wants this to last.

They’re so, so quiet. Much too quiet for two motor mouths.

“You okay?” Eddie asks. His voice is shot already, throaty and raw from his restraint, and he hasn’t even begun.

Richie’s eyes have closed, now, but he breathes deeply—once, twice—and Eddie can feel his cock between their bodies, spurting helplessly in a sign that he’s enjoying himself. “I’m—Eds, I’m so full,” Richie admits in a whisper, like it’s not the hottest thing Eddie’s heard in his fucking life.

“Shit,” is all Eddie can think to reply, followed by a deep groan. He is _so_ not going to last as long as he wants. “Okay, okay, I’m going to—pull out? And start. Okay?”

“’Kay.” Richie would almost sound nonchalant if his voice wasn’t quivering so badly.

Eddie kisses him, first, and then pulls away to watch his face as he pulls out, then thrust back in two seconds later.

And thank God he’d been watching, because Richie’s eyes roll back in his fucking head, like it feels _that_ good. “_Fffffffuck_,” Richie whines.

Eddie does it again, focusing on how fucked-out Richie looks already and the sweet, tight grip around his cock.

“This is—_oh,_” Richie moans, hands shaking as they reach up to wrap around Eddie’s back, tightening so hard that Eddie’s skin burns.

He tries to get hold of his breathing before he replies. “Oh?” he asks, amused and breathless, as he drags his dick out again.

Richie pulls, forcing Eddie to fuck back into him. “_Oh_,” Richie echoes, head tilting back in pleasure. “It’s so good, so good, so—”

“Good?” Eddie finishes for him, wanting both to laugh at him hard and kiss him harder.

“Shut up,” Richie says, stealing his line. Eddie thrusts again, this time pressing in as deep as he can go, a bit quicker and harder than he did before. “_Fuck_! How are you so deep? I can feel you—_guh_—in my throat.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Eddie utters, fucking his cock back inside.

Richie laughs, almost helpless, before making a high-pitched noise again. “I don’t know if—_ohhh_—the J-man would approve of sodomy.”

“I can’t believe,” Eddie pants, pulling out before thrusting in at a different angle, looking for his prostate, “that you’re calling it _sodomy_ right now.” He fucks him again, and Richie’s gives a low whine. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you—?”

Richie gives a self-deprecating laugh, hidden within his moans. “Oh, baby, let us count the ways.” He sounds oddly inebriated, like Eddie’s administered him a secret elixir through his dick.

“Let’s _not_,” Eddie replies, voice dark. “I was joking. There’s nothing wrong with you at all, and I’ll fucking show you.”

“Show me—?” Eddie changes his angle again, and it must finally work, because Richie moans loudly, cock jumping strongly between them. “_Oh_, oh, babe, there—”

“I’m going to fuck you so good.” He groans, thinking of how it must feel for Richie, the slide of Eddie’s cock along his insides, his dick punctuating against his sweet spot in tandem with his heavy thrusts. “You’ll feel it for days, you’ll remember how much I love you, you’ll _feel _it—”

Richie whimpers, legs wrapping around Eddie’s body and ankles digging into his ass, rolling his hips upward to meet every thrust. “God, how are you so hot, it’s not _fair_—”

“_You’re_ hot,” Eddie counters, fuck-stupid and desperate. He starts to kiss Richie’s throat, downward and downward until he reaches his shoulder, his favourite place to leave sucking bruises. In a softer voice, he says: “You drive me fucking crazy. _Fuck_, I can’t think straight—”

Richie giggles brokenly. “I’d hope so, considering your dick is in my ass.”

“Do you ever _shut up_,” Eddie groans, giving it to him ruthlessly, wanting to fuck the jokes out of him. “How are you still talking? I’d threaten to gag you, but you’d probably like it.”

Richie moans, and his foot digs so hard into Eddie’s back that he feels a sharp burst of pain. “Fuck, _fuck_, I’m—”

“You make me insane. I look at you and I want to fuck you so badly, Rich, I want you to fuck _me_ so bad, want to feel you inside me too—”

“_Eddie_,” Richie cries, like he’s imagining it too.

Eddie’s hand goes to Richie’s hair, pulling on it hard, fisting the curls in his grip. Their eyes find each other, and _God_, Richie looks so fucking ruined, like he actually is having a goddamn religious experience. For a second, he becomes cognizant of how much of an affect they have on each other, how deeply they care for one another. This kind of love is forever, he decides.

“I love you,” he says, voice cracking and heart soft. He repeats it for good measure. “I love you, Rich.”

Richie groans, loud, like that has done more for him than any of the filth Eddie has spewed in the last few minutes. He doesn’t reply, but it’s okay, because Eddie knows he loves him too. He’s never felt more loved than he does when he’s in the presence of Richie—it’s become this unconditional, unsettling, indisputable fact of his universe.

“God, look at you, you’re so fucking gorgeous like this. Can you feel it, sweetheart? Can you feel how much I love you?” He sinks his teeth hard into the tender flesh of his shoulder, is rewarded with a moan of conviction. He fucks him faster for it, giving it all his strength, the muscles of his thigh straining, balls slapping against the curve of Richie’s ass. He keeps him trapped underneath him, feeding him his cock in every thrust, taking care of him by making him feel good. “_Feel it_, Rich, fuck, do you _feel_ it—?”

“_Eddie_,” Richie gasps, wildly. His eyes are wet, and he looks like he’s about to cry. Eddie might cry, himself, if that happens. “Eds, I need you to—”

Eddie’s hand goes straight to Richie’s cock, stripping it. “Sound so good,” Eddie says, voice rough and no filter whatsoever, drunk on the feeling of his cock around the vice grip of Richie’s ass. “So good for me, aren’t you? You’re perfect, you’re unreal, want you _forever_, the love of my fucking life—”

And it’s that which makes Richie come, tears streaming down his face, as if it’s a gift for Eddie’s honesty. His wet sobs reverberate throughout the room, face sweaty, red, blotchy, and he’s never looked more beautiful. Eddie fucks him through it, leaning down to kiss the tears away, a sign of pure love and comfort.

He fists Richie’s cock, the slap of his hand on it echoing, milking him through it as Eddie, himself, shudders from the hot clench around his dick, leading him to this obscure obviation that he’s never known before. He flies off the edge, toes curling, heart pounding, blood singing through his veins.

He thinks, crazed, that he’s come inside Richie’s ass. The thought is filthy and unbelievably hot. He pulls out slowly, before melting into the bed, right next to Richie. If he hadn’t just said something much too intense, he might’ve done something gross about it, like pushed his fingers back inside Richie’s hole and shivered at the feeling of his come inside it. Momentarily, he buries his head into the pillow, his face hot with want.

He basically just told Richie he wants to marry him. Not in those exact words, but the sentiment is there, disguised as another set of words. It was during sex, sure, and he got caught up in the moment, of course, but… he meant every word.

He’s overcome with happiness, and yet he can’t help but stay quiet afterward, the only sound in Richie’s bedroom being their loud panting as they try to relax themselves.

It gets so quiet that it almost becomes awkward, but then Richie moves into him, wraps his arm around Eddie’s midsection, and nuzzles at his cheek.

He tilts his head to the side, and peeks up at him. Richie’s not crying outwardly anymore, but his eyes still have a wet sheen to them.

“Forever is a long time,” is all Richie says, in a very tiny voice. Almost like he’s giving him an out.

Eddie won’t allow it.

“I know,” he says, simply. He might be young, but he knows his heart, and he knows his truth. It’s there, that feeling that can’t be replicated twice in a lifetime, and he feels it undoubtedly.

Richie stares, speechless, then the sweetest smile envelops his face, making Eddie’s nerves completely worth it.

He doesn’t need a reply. He knows how Richie feels about him, and he doesn’t care about him returning his feelings in a polite gesture—that isn’t how they work.

Instead, turning over, he asks, “How was it?”

“The sex?” Richie checks. Eddie nods, and Richie smirks. He’s about to tell a joke, Eddie knows it, and he doesn’t know why he bothered asking in the first place. “It was—”

And then he cuts off with a sudden pause, eyes skirting along Eddie’s face.

Eddie raises an eyebrow in question, and all of Richie’s bravado dissolves. “I’ll never forget it,” he says instead, voice much too tender.

Eddie can feel the tips of his ears burning. “Me too.”

Richie fails to hide a cheeky grin. “Want to hear something gross?”

“Hm?”

Richie leans closer, and whispers in a teasing voice, “I can feel your come dripping out of me.”

Eddie gasps. “Jesus_ Christ_, Rich.” He grabs onto his hair, pulling him into a heated kiss. He licks into that mouth until Richie is moaning into it too.

He knows Richie can see that his eyes are pitch-black with want when he pulls away. All he gets is a disbelieving laugh in response. “Wow,” Richie breathes with surprise. “If I knew what a little minx you were when I first kissed you, I might’ve done it much sooner.”

Eddie lets a sly smile creep on his face, and snorts. “As if,” he says, cuddling up against him. “You were such a baby about it.”

Richie huffs, refusing to admit to it. “You surprise me a lot,” he observes instead, in a pensive tone. “I didn’t expect you to be like this, when I imagined us together.”

“Did you imagine it a lot?” Eddie asks first, heart bursting. He traces along Richie’s abdomen, and tilts his head up to look at his face.

Richie nods, almost bashful.

“You surprise me, too,” Eddie tells him then, all smiles, because it’s true.

He’s gone through a journey with Richie, too, and he wouldn’t exchange all that confusion and pain and laughter for the world. Before they kissed, Richie had been his best friend, the person he loved the most and the one he never had to explain himself to. They understood each other. But he’d changed after the kiss too. Eddie hadn’t realized it, but Richie hadn’t entirely been himself before. He hid himself from the world, acted like he was both begging everyone to look at him, but still too afraid to let them see him stripped bare.

Now, though—now, Eddie is grateful that he gets to see him for who he truly is.

“I like you like this, though,” Richie says. His voice is quiet and painfully earnest, playing with Eddie’s hair in an absent-minded way. “You’re different, but still you. I found a whole other side of you. It’s nice.” He pauses, eyes flickering between Eddie’s, and continues even quieter. “It makes me love you more.”

Richie wanted him before, and he still wants him now.

_Yeah_, Eddie thinks, before pressing a kiss of love to Richie’s lips_. I’m glad I’ve finally found myself, too_. 

**FIN**.

**Author's Note:**

> Me, screaming from the rooftops: AND THEN THEY NEVER FORGET EACH OTHER AND GET MARRIED ONCE IT’S LEGALIZED AND MAYBE EVEN ADOPT BABIES, THE END.
> 
> This has been such a journey! I had a really fun time writing this, honestly, and I thank you all for reading—especially those who read as it was a work-in-progress. Perhaps you can leave me some validation before I die or something? I can be just as dramatic as Richie when I want to be. <3
> 
> \+ **me, elsewhere**:  
twitter: [falsettowrites](http://falsettodrop.tumblr.com) | tumblr: [falsettodrop](http://falsettodrop.tumblr.com), [viewsfromthestyx](http://viewsfromthestyx.tumblr.com).


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